Waking the Dead: The Complete Season One and Pilot Episode

This BBC series, broadcast stateside on BBC America, is a sort of combination of Jerry Bruckheimer's Cold Case and C.S.I.—a police procedural about a team of investigators who, most of the time, take up unsolved cases and often depend on forensic evidence to catch the guilty party. Judging by longevity, the program is a considerable success: it completed its fifth season in 2005, and another is planned for 2007. This extra-less three-disc set contains the pilot and four regular episodes (each two hours long) of the 2001 first season. Waking the Dead isn't as flashy as its American cousins, which specialize in eye-catching cinematography and special effects; by contrast, the stories here are visually lean and down-to-earth, offering numerous plot twists but still told in a straightforward style. As is often the case, the pilot episode seems somewhat unsettled, with the characters incompletely sketched and the cast trying to find its rhythm, but things improve markedly in the regular episodes, once the show really hits its stride: the writing is crisp, the cast interact with increasing confidence, and the characters take on additional depth. If police procedurals, especially of the British variety, are your cup of tea, by the last episode you'll probably be hooked and looking forward to the next helping. Recommended. (F. Swietek)