CSI Miami: Season 2

The A/V Lab is a terrific extra, because it does exactly what you want, except doesn't do it for long enough. Writer/producer Elizabeth Devine, a leading member of the CSI family, explains, as far as she can to lay people like me, how the technology used on the show works. If I mentioned, "HUF Transform," "Audio Isolation," or "Photo Enhancing," would you run away and hide? Of course, it's a kind of magic.

Devine is very clear in her explanations. She tells us which techniques are used as trial evidence and which are not, why certain techniques ("Video Reconstruction") are only used by police in big cities, such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York, because they are so expensive to operate. What she is talking about is how to read a number plate from CCTV when the car is in the half distance and sideways on; how to reconstruct on the computer a hit-and-run from sparse clues; how to find a particular car from the sound of its engine; how to close a case by interpreting the noise in a hearing aid that has been caused by a mobile phone; how to clean up fuzzy images at the back of a video film so that you can identify faces.

It is fascinating. I wish Elizabeth had stayed around a little longer. She's too good.

The rest of the extras consist of audio commentaries on four of the episodes by directors and writers. These are varied, but on the whole consistently interesting. Occasionally they are indiscrete and admit that much of the show is shot in Los Angeles. "We go to Miami about three times a year." I won't tell you who said that (one of the writers), in case he never works again.

David Caruso is well respected ("He's always right there") and the mood on the set is jokey and fun, despite the pressure of work. Danny Cannon, one of the executive producers from the original CSI, as well as a director (and a Brit), admits being scared, starting the second season - new crew, new writers - in addition to staying within budget, which is always a challenge. Ann Donahue, one of the creators of CSI and a regular writer, concludes on an upbeat: "There's poetry in everything, there's romance in everything, even a car crash."