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Set in the city that never sleeps, CSI: New York is
the latest spin-off from the hugely popular CSI series.
Following on from Vegas and Miami, this CSI
has a distinct New York City flavour and style. Dealing with
a city with a three hundred year history and eight million
residents is a whole different ball game...
It's
all change for the CSI: New York team as Season
Two gets under way. Out
goes Aiden Burn to be replaced by fresh-faced transfer Lindsay
Monroe - the jury's still out on whether Aiden left the show
in the best way possible for her character. While I wasn't
expecting a blaze of glory she does leave a bit weakly - as
thought the writers really couldn't be bothered. Pathologist
Sheldon Hawkes, after expressing his interest in moving out
of the coroner's office, makes his first forays into the field
as a CSI field agent. He is replaced by Dr. Sid Hammerback,
a man with a rather bizarre sense of humour.
I
started to get a bit nervous at the start of this collection.
Why? Well, Mac started to show signs of becoming a pain in
the ass - like Caine in CSI: Miami. On a couple of
occasions he acts the hard man by threatening witnesses before
he has any proof. And, most annoyingly he twice delivers naff
Scooby-Doo style lines. In fact, in Summer in the
City he actually does say: "And you might have gotten
away with it..." Thankfully though this is short lived
and he soon gets back to being the nice, friendly Mac that
we know and love.
This
season kicks off on the right foot with the episode Summer
in the City. Mac and Hawkes investigate the suspicious
death of a free climber attempting to scale the Empire State
Building. In fact, this is the crime that opens the show.
Meanwhile Danny and Stella unravel the mystery of why a world
famous designer was found dead wearing one of his own creations:
a bra covered in millions of dollars worth of diamonds; and
Aiden revisits an unsolved rape with potentially career-ending
results. The
opening to the episode also gives us an indication of the
shock tactics that the producers are going to use throughout
this season - when the climber hits the ground, we see a quick
shot of something big and bloody that has managed to separate
from his body on impact. It soon transpires that this is his
brain.
Other
highlights include:
Zoo
York - At the Bronx Zoo Mac, Danny and the new CSI Lindsay
Hamilton look into the death of a man thrown to the tigers.
Across town Stella and Hawkes are called in to find an elegantly
dressed young woman dead on a carousel; the investigation
leads from Central Park to Park Avenue in search of a debutante's
killer. This episode has two very clever murders. Again, as
in Summer in the City, this episode goes for the jugular
with the gore. This time it's the body parts strewn around
the tiger enclosure that will have you reaching (or retching)
for a sick bag.
Corporate
Warriors - A man is found beaten to death at the San Gennaro
festival and the trail leads Mac and Stella from the narrow
alleys of Mott Street to the power players of Wall Street,
where they find themselves confronted by the code of the corporate
warrior, which insures that the weak perish at the hands of
the strong and the price of disloyalty is death. Meanwhile,
Hawkes probes the tragic death of a young boy trapped in an
apartment fire off Washington Square Park, birthplace of New
York City's outdoor chess world and end of the line for an
arsonist. Okay, the title sort of gives away some of the suspense
here. When Mac and Stella start looking into the work place
of the first victim it becomes pretty obvious that it's a
work related death. Still, there are some clever element to
this episode, and anyone who is interested in ancient Japanese
weaponry will find this especially entertaining. The second
crime, that of the death of a small boy, is rather tragic
- especially when it is revealed how he died.
Dancing
with the Fishes - Mac, Stella and Lindsay team up to discover
why a struggling young dancer with a winning lottery ticket
in her pocket was thrown from the Roosevelt Bridge Island
Tram. Hawkes and Danny wonder why an honest fisherman seems
to have met with an unfortunate death. Again, this episode
starts with a particularly gruesome scene as a young woman
lands on the bonnet of a car. It's a cheap trick to get the
audience to jump, but it works. The second story sees the
CSI team entering into the world of the fish trader when they
find a body that has been dumped - a body that smells of fish.
Young
Blood - The witness to a brutal elevator slaying has disappeared,
and as the CSIs track her down they uncover the world of Manhattan
"Lolitas", young girls who trawl for older men, never thinking
of the potentially murderous consequences. Uptown, a body
is discovered in the boat pond in Central Park, and as the
CSIs investigate they discover that the victim has two identities
from two very separate worlds. Powerful evidence points to
a six degrees of separation scenario gone horribly wrong.
While the first crime was interesting, it was the second murder
that was really clever. When the CSI team find a body weighted
down in a pond, they are at a loss to explain why half of
his clothing looks like it belongs to a tramp, while the rest
is expensive labels.
Bad
Beat - When murder comes to play at a high-stakes poker
game, Mac and his team work to find out why. In Central Park's
Strawberry Fields, Hawkes and Danny come across a body they
instantly recognise- she's the popular weather girl at Channel
2. Who would want such a sunny personality dead? I liked this
episode for one huge reason. I worked out both murders before
the reveal! Yay me! That doesn't happen often. Again, there's
some pretty gory make-up as one of the poker players gets
a shotgun in the face. And poor old Hawkes spends a lot of
time in the rain trying to work out why the weather girl was
killed.
City
of the Dolls - In a New York doll "hospital", Mac and
Danny recover the corpse of the doll "doctor" beneath hundreds
of body parts - doll body parts. Meanwhile, Stella and Hawkes
find a young woman dead in her apartment; evidence leads to
several suspects. After all, who wouldn't kill for a residence
with a view of the park? The main story, about the doll hospital
is creepy, but not hard to fathom. As soon as you see the
CSI team open up a doll with a voice box, you just know that
some evidence or other is going to be recorded on it. The
other murder, of a woman in a block of flats, is interesting
in that it takes you all over the place, making you suspect
everyone, before the real killer is revealed.
Jamalot
- A rising roller derby star drops dead in the middle of a
match, and Mac and Stella come to the rink to investigate.
A deeper inspection reveals a gruesome discovery: she cooked
to death - from the inside out. What could have caused such
a meltdown? Hawkes and Danny unravel the mystery of why a
struggling novelist was killed and left in an expensive oriental
rug. While the main murder of a roller derby star is not particularly
interesting, the crime surround the novelist is. The twist
in the tale here is totally unexpected, and very cleverly
handled.
Trapped
- An eccentric billionaire is found dead in his bedroom and
when Danny begins to process the scene he inadvertently trips
a "panic" button, sealing himself in with the victim. There's
no way to open the room in less than 12 hours, so he must
resort to old school MacGuyver like forensics to ensure the
murderer doesn't get a head start. While I loved this episode,
in fact it was probably my favourite in this collection, I
did have a few issues with it. Firstly, I couldn't really
fathom why they couldn't get Danny to bag up all the evidence
and wait until he could be freed from the room. Surely the
evidence wouldn't be compromised that much by the heat. Also
wouldn't it be inadmissible in court? The testing wasn't done
in a controlled environment, like their labs, so goodness
knows what sort of things could mess with the results. If
they were hurrying because they wanted to trap their killer,
and every second counts, surely a few hours is not going to
make a lot of difference when it comes to ensuring that the
evidence is processed properly. There was also a sort of an
A-Team feel to this episode - Danny trapped in a room
that just happens to have all the necessary chemicals and
materials to allow him to do his job.
In
fact, the only episode I really didn't care for was Manhattan
Manhunt. This is the second part of the CSI: Miami
/ CSI: New York crossover episodes) Mac and Miami's
Caine follow the evidence from steamy Miami to steely New
York as they close in on the blood thirsty Henry Darius. The
entire New York Crime Lab races against the clock to catch
the twisted sociopath before he kills again. The story itself
was okay, apart from the appearance of Caine. Now, I know
this episode only really exists to migrate CSI: Miami
fans over to CSI: New York and Vice Versa, but Caine's
stupid little promise to some little kid got right up my nose.
Am I the only person who wants to punch Caine in his stupid,
smug, freckled face?
There
seemed to be a bit of a trend developing here too. On a few
episodes a third murder is added into the mix. And while at
first this murder seems unrelated, the CSI team always managed
to link it into one of their other cases.
I
mentioned earlier the replacement of Hawkes by Dr. Hammerback.
You might recognise the actor Robert Joy. He played Lizard
in Alexandre
Aja's
remake of The Hills Have Eyes.
Oddly
enough, this collection has no extras at all. Which (no pun
intended) is a crime in itself. What happened to the audio
commentaries and behind the scenes featurettes that fans have
come to expect on these releases?
The
whole season will set you back £80. To be honest that's
daylight robbery. But, if you have the cash, the episodes
are almost universally of a very high standard.
Amber
Leigh
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