CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Las Vegas - Season 3 Part 1 [DVD] [2001]

The first 12 episodes of season 3 on this three-disc set present more deliciously bizarre situations for the problem-solving sleuths: cannibalism, snuff movies, dwarfs, death while drag racing, bodies falling from the sky, and various dismemberments all tax the team's acumen. These are all double or multiple-case episodes, though in a characteristic trick of the writing sometimes apparently unrelated murders turn out to be connected (or vice versa, as in "Blood Lust", where a road accident victim is not what he seems, and the death of the driver at the hands of an angry mob is made all the more tragic.) The mix of genuine forensic science with the glossiest Jerry Bruckheimer production values, plus the virtues of a good ensemble cast headed by William Peterson's modern-day Sherlock Holmes, remains as compelling as ever. --Mark Walker

• 3.1 "Revenge is Best Served Cold"
  The CSIs investigate the mysterious death of a poker-playing legend in the middle of a volatile high stakes game; Catherine and Nick track a gun-shot victim found at an old landing strip in the middle of nowhere to the illegal world of street racing.
  
• 3.2 "The Accused is Entitled"
  A box-office superstar is arrested for the murder of his one-night stand, and his dream team attorneys will stop at nothing to throw dirt on the CSIs’ evidence collection – including adding Grissom’s mentor to their defence team.
  
• 3.3 "Let the Seller Beware"
  An open house becomes a death house, when the two owners are found murdered – a cuckolded husband, and his wife, who may have been cheating a little too close to home; Sara investigates the gruesome death of a cheerleader, with cannibalistic overtones.
  
• 3.4 " A Little Murder"
  A popular dwarf is found hanged during the annual little people’s convention, but his average-sized fiancé insists that he did not kill himself, and as the CSI team investigates, she may turn out to be most likely suspect in his staged murder; meanwhile Catherine is sent to process a home invasion robbery, she is attacked by the suspect who has been hiding in the house.
  
• 3.5 "Abra Cadaver"
  A woman who volunteers to be part of a magic show is made to disappear – for real – and when the CSI team investigates, they find that a famous magician may be a murderer; Catherine and Nick look into the death of a rock star whose overdose may have been staged by one of his greedy bandmates.
  
• 3.6 "The Execution of Catherine Willows"
  A serial killer who Catherine helped put on death row receives a stay of execution on a new evidence appeal, forcing Catherine to re-examine her feelings and the case against him; a young woman goes missing, and her alcoholic father, found in a blood-drenched t-shirt, can’t explain what happened to her.
  
• 3.7 "Fight Night"
  During a middleweight championship bout, two fighters with bad blood between them enter the ring, but only one is left standing – and the CSIs are called to the scene when the loser is pronounced dead; meanwhile, in the aftermath of the fight, gangbangers use a different brand of violence to settle a score; and Nick investigates a smash-and-grab robbery in a casino store.
  
• 3.8 "Snuff"
  The CSIs investigate the death is a porn actress in a violent snuff film, but have no idea who she is, where the movie was filmed, or who shot it; Nick and Grissom trace a skeleton found in a toolbox covered with fire ants.
  
• 3.9 "Blood Lust"
  A young man is accidentally run over by a taxi, and a pack of angry bystanders attack the driver, believing he intended to flee the scene, leaving the young man dead on the street. But the CSIs prove the boy had already been fatally stabbed before the cab hit him, and now they are investigating three deaths – one, an impersonal hate crime, and the other equally sad, unnecessary and very personal.
  
• 3.10 "High and Low"
  A John Doe takes a flyer off the roof of the building, but he died in the air, not on the ground, and the CSIs have only his tattoo to jumpstart their investigation; Catherine is called to the scene of a shooting at a bar, and finds herself involved in the ultimate neighbourhood feud.
  
• 3.11 "Recipe for Murder"
  A dismembered body is found in the grinder of a meat-packing plant, and the CSIs trace the murder to a five-star restaurant, where the victim was the head chef; the parents of a troubled young woman report her death, an apparent suicide, but Sara and Warrick soon establish that there are suspicious circumstances – the body has been moved and repositioned.
  
• 3.12 "Got Murder?"
  The CSI team work backward from the gruesome discovery of a human eyeball in a raven’s nest, to discover that a wife who had formerly gone missing has been murdered – and both the husband and the teenage daughter have motives that shock the investigators; a car salesman winds up on Dr. Robbins’ autopsy table, but he only looks dead.