CSI: Miami— The Complete Third Season

The 2004-05 third season of this unusually successful spin-off opens with the kind of shocking surprise usually reserved for season closers: in “Lost Son,” detective Tim Speedle (Rory Cochrane) is shot to death while he and Horatio Caine (series star David Caruso) are investigating the kidnapping of a child. His replacement, former patrolman Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo), is introduced in one of the year's best episodes, “Under the Influence,” which also finds team member Callie Duquesne (Emily Procter) trying to help her father (guest star John Heard), who believes he may have hit and killed someone while driving under the influence. The show's writers apparently channeled old-school Hollywood whodunits for “Hell Night,” which has an irresistible setup: a famous baseball player, on trial for murdering his glamorous wife, visits the crime scene with lawyers and jurors. The lights go dark for an instant, and when they come back up, the accused killer lies dead on the floor, a meat cleaver in his back and a note reading “guilty” on his body. An equally excellent but more contemporary episode, “Crime Wave” takes place as Miami evacuates under a tsunami warning and the team races against the clock to investigate the deaths of two people, who may be linked to a bank robbery timed to take advantage of the evacuation. It's obvious from this year's 24 episodes that CSI: Miami had really hit its stride, establishing the same level of excellence set by the original series. DVD extras include audio commentaries on six episodes, as well as four behind-the-scene featurettes, and the eight-part “Medical Examiner School.” Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)