It may be hard to believe with the plethora of HD channels available now via DBS, cable cos and telecos, but there was a time during the first two years of HD broadcasts that there was almost no HD programming available to watch. There was only one HD cable channel, HBO, and the major broadcast networks, some of which had maybe one show in HD available each day or, in the case of PBS, ran nothing but a loop hour after hour. Even worse was Fox, which at the beginning, didn’t think that HD was even necessary, broadcasting in 480p widescreen which they believed the viewing audience would find to be good enough. Needless to say, those of us who were very early adopters of HD, were hungry for almost any kind of HD programming and would watch shows that we normally might not have given a second thought to just because they were in HD.

CBS was the early leader in providing prime HD programming and hence, was the network that we would most often turn to, to watch shows such as Diagnosis Murder and Nash Bridges, which were two shows I would never had tuned into were it not for them being in HD. The same is true of the show which is the subject of today’s review, CSI. I must say that I was never all that big on crime shows and one that focused on a team of forensic investigators in Las Vegas didn’t exactly sound all that interesting. However, the picture and audio quality on CSI was so good that we began to watch every week. With the original look of the show and the increasing strength of the scripts, it didn’t take all that long for us to be hooked. Over the years, the picture quality of CSI has remained among the best of all network programming (with CSI New York being the best IMHO), I was very curious to see what effect the 1080p video and increased data rates available on Blu-ray would have on the already stellar picture quality on this show. With the release of the complete ninth season of CSI on Blu-ray, it was now time to find out.

Show

I am sure that most, if not all of you, are all well familiar with CSI. I will therefore dispense with too many particulars about the series and the ninth season in particular other than to state that the ninth season was fraught with many significant changes. After having been on for 8 seasons, I guess the story lines and characters may have gotten a bit stale and a shake up was in order.

The season starts off with the death of CSI Warrick Brown and the trauma of his murder which happened right at the end of the last show of season 8. His death had quite an effect on the entire team. So did the departure of Sarah Sidle (Jorga Fox) during season 8, who had become the love interest of the lead CSI, Gil Grissom (William Petersen), who early on in season 9 decides that it is time to leave CSI. This was a decision that you could clearly see coming over the last couple of seasons of the show. His departure was handled with style and his presence on the show was replaced by Dr. Raymond Langston played by veteran actor Laurence Fishburne, a M.D. turned college professor turned level one CSI. It seemed to me to be a bit of a stretch for an M.D. to accept the position of an entry level CSI and its accompanying low pay.

While the reasons behind his decision are only hinted at briefly during season 9, he quickly goes from a rookie to a veteran and leader of the crew in a couple of episodes. His arrival on the scene really injected some new life and energy into the show. It also enabled the writers to flesh out the more minor characters on the show more fully. As a result, I thought that season 9 was one of the best seasons of the show ever. The release contains all 24 episodes of season 9 spread out over 6 discs. This Blu-ray release is a welcomed addition to any video collection and is highly recommended.

Video

The bar was already set quite high for judging this release due to the great picture quality of the series on broadcast TV. However, I am pleased to report that this Blu-ray release has taken the video quality of the show to an even higher level. Perhaps a few levels higher. This is without a doubt the best looking TV series that has yet to appear on Blu-ray. The image retains all of the stylized renderings of the TV show but improves on the overall color saturation, shadow detail and clarity. The level of clarity here is simply outstanding. The image on screen has a finer and smoother overall look that the broadcast version but with much more detail. I was not able to detect any evidence of digital noise reduction.

Black level is simply superb as is also the case with shadow detail., which, with the level of detail and clarity, results in an image of incredible depth. It was hard for me to believe that one could improve on the picture quality of the TV series this much but they have and shows just how much the bandwidth starved Mpeg-2 encoding process along with the rate shaping and re-encoding performed by some of the cable companies, effects the image quality we see at home. Watching CSI the Ninth Season on Blu-ray is almost like watching the show for the first time. It really appears as though you are peering through a window watching actors perform before you rather than watching a TV the image quality is so good. If you are a fan of the show, you owe it to yourself to see how good the show can really look.

Audio

While I did not feel it to be as dramatic, the lossless audio track on Blu-ray (DTS HD Master Audio 7.1) does offer a significant improvement over the Dolby Digital 5.1 track available on broadcast TV. I was immediately struck by the overall smoothness of the sound, which sounds more refined, less edgier and more open and transparent than the broadcast version. As a result, the sound field has a greater sense of apparent depth to it, with a greater overall sense of real actors speaking in real space. The dialogue track in particular sounds wonderful. The surrounds are used to great effect to provide sound effects as well as a sense of room acoustics. Inside CSI, the surrounds are used to provide room ambiance as well as the sounds of people walking by, talking, the rustling of papers, the clanging of instruments and the reverberation of voices.

For a TV series, I have always found that CSI and CSI New York offered rather sophisticated sound designs that really add to one’s enjoyment of the show. The only downside I can think of in regards to the audio here involves the bass which I didn’t find to be quite as robust as the broadcast version of the show. All in all, that is one very minor quibble given the overall quality of the audio track on this release.

Special Features

Frankly, this release comes packed with more extras than I had expected it would. The extras are spread out over all six discs. They include deleted scenes (in SD) as well as several other extras all in HD including Crime Scene Initiation, Interactive Investigative Mode, CSI Mode, Rats in Space, From Zero to 200 in nine seasons and Goodbye Grissom. There are several standouts in the extras. One id CSI mode where during the running of the a given episode, a box pops upon the screen explaining technical details behind the collection of the evidence, explaining, for example, why a particular type of fingerprint powder is used in that scene.

I also found the Rats in Space featurette to be entertaining. The term Rats refers to the more minor cast members who are given there own episode each season in which to shine. In season nine, it is the hilarious take off on sci-fi conventions and Star Trek The Original Series entitled “A Space Oddity”. It is a blast wee how many scenes in that episode are lifted right out of the original Star Trek TV series, which I guess was appropriate given the release of the new Star Trek film around the same time as the broadcast of that episode.

However, the best of the extras is the featurette Goodbye Grissom where the producers, writers and cast members discuss their feelings as to William Petersen’s departure from the show and how it was written into the series. It contains the first extensive interview with William Petersen that I have seen explaining the reason he decided to leave the series. If you only have the time or inclination to check out one of the extras, this is the one to check out. The release is also BD-Live enabled which you can use to access audio commentaries on two the episodes, the aforementioned A Space Oddity and Turn, Turn, Turn.

Final Thoughts

CSI has been one of my favorite TV shows since the dawn of the high definition age. This Blu-ray release offers significant improvements over the already excellent audio and video quality on the broadcast version of the show and is well worth checking out. Highly recommended.