DVD/TV Series Review: FBI Season 3

 

Season three of FBI was another short season due to the covid pandemic, this time because production started later in the year than usual. So, this season only has fifteen episodes as opposed to a normal twenty-two-episode run. There is more cast turnover this season with Ebonee Noel and Catherine Haena Kim leaving the show and Katherine Renee Turner joining the cast as FBI Special Agent Tiffany Wallace who is a former NYPD officer and White Collar Division agent.

The show mostly follows the case-of-the-week procedural format that the prior two seasons have, although there are a couple of episodes in which the story arcs and the "bad guy" tie together. The covid pandemic is referenced from time to time, but it is not a main theme of the show at all. The show does play on real-life events including the protests against the police that occurred throughout the country and dug deep into the archives to have an episode that played on the investigation and capture of the Unabomber. The series continues to be well-written and acted. There is a lot of violence but nothing too gory, and there is really no sexual content beyond some kissing. The show still does not delve a ton into the characters' personal lives, but it still does a good job with character development and making viewers get invested, either positively or negatively, in the characters.

If you want the DVD set you will have to pay for an import as the DVDs are not released in Region 1 (the US and Canada), which means that you also need either a region 2 or region-free DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch them on. The DVDs are basically a MOD set that has a few different language options (German, English, and French) and does have captions, but there are no extras like behind-the-scenes features, deleted scenes, or anything like that. So, if you only get DVDs when there are a lot of extras, you may just want to stream this one because you will not get anything more by purchasing the DVD set.

DVD/TV Series Review: FBI: Most Wanted Season 1

 

This is one of the latest shows in the huge Wolf production machine that includes Law & Order and its various spin-offs and the One-Chicago series (Chicago Fire. PD. and Med). This one was spun off from FBI after just one season. It actually introduced some of the characters in a backdoor pilot episode in Season one of FBI and has a two-episode crossover with its parent show about halfway through the season.

The series stars Julian McMahon (who appeared on Charmed, Nip/Tuck, and the original Fantastic Four movies) as agent Jess LeCroix, as the head of a team that tracks down people who end up on the FBI's most-wanted list. The team includes Kellan Lutz (best known for his role in the Twilight movies), Keisha Castle-Hughes (who is recognizable for a small role in Star Wars Episode III and a larger role in Game of Thrones), Nathaniel Arcand as Clinton Skye, who is an FBI special agent and Jess' brother-in-law, and Roxy Sternberg (who was on the short-lived series Emerald City and the limited event series Mars).

Like the parent show, this is a case-of-the-week show in which some crime occurs before the main titles, and then the team is brought in to track down the fugitive. Unlike the parent show, we get more of a glimpse into the personal lives of the characters, especially Jess' family life. We find out he was married to a Native American service member who was killed in Afghanistan, leaving him a widowed single father. YaYa Gosselin plays his pre-teen daughter Tali. Jess is the character whose personal life we see the most, but we do get at least a glimpse into every character's personal life, which is something that the parent show has really not given us much of (with a couple of exceptions). The series has a good blend of action, drama, and suspense, and characters from the parent series do appear a few times throughout the season.

If you want the physical DVDs you have to purchase an imported set. For some reason, the series was not released on DVD in the US, so you have to get a region 2 set, which also means you need a region 2 or a region-free DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch them. You may also have to adjust the audio settings to hear the English language track. My set defaults to playing in German, so I have to switch it over to English audio for each disc. There are no extras, just the episodes themselves. So, you really have to prefer physical discs to streaming to want to pick this up.

Overall, the show is very good. It is well-written and acted, and has a good mix of stories. The bad guys range from white supremacist domestic terrorists to a grieving Native American father who goes on a killing spree trying to track down his kidnapped daughter. So, if you are a fan of procedural crime shows, this is definitely a good one to check out.

DVD/TV Series Review: FBI Season Two

 

Season Two of FBI followed pretty much the same format as the first, with a story of the week, that usually involves some crime like a murder or a kidnapping in the first act before the title and main credits roll, and then the team picks up the case and has to solve it by the end of the episodes. The episodes are, for the most part, all stand-alone and there are not really any ongoing story arcs or threads that go throughout the season.

There are a couple of cast changes. At the end of Season 1, Sela Ward's character Dana indicated she was going to retire. She was replaced by Alana De La Garza, playing Isobel Castile, the new head of the division. John Boyd (probably best known for his work on the last couple of seasons of Bones) joins the cast as agent Stuart Scola and Catherine Haena Kim joins as Emily Ryder, who fills in as a field agent. Of course, anyone who is a fan of Law and Order knows that Alana De La Garza's casting creates a big continuity error as she had also played a main role in the later seasons of the original Law and Order series, which is in the same universe with all the other Wolf produced shows. This is further cemented by the fact that Tracy Spiridakos from Chicago PD (which crossed over with Law and Order: SVU multiple times) made a guest-starring appearance as detective Upton at the end of the season when Missy Peregrym went out on maternity leave. The season was also cut short due to the start of the Covid pandemic so it just has 19 episodes instead of the regular 22.

For those who prefer to get the show on DVD, it has only been released on disc in Europe, so you have to buy an imported version (which means you also need a region-2 or a region-free DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch the discs on). They are basically MOD discs, with just the episodes and no extras. Also, depending on what country your particular set was manufactured for, you may have to change the audio settings to hear the English language audio. My set defaults to playing in German. Not a big deal, just something to be aware of. The one thing that did irk me about this set is that even though there is a crossover episode with the spin-off series FBI Most Wanted, only the first half of the crossover is on the disc. Unlike the Chicago-based shows, which include all episodes of the crossovers on the DVD sets for each show, if you want to see the Most Wanted episode that finishes the storyline, you have to either get that DVD set or stream it separately.

Overall, the show continues to be well-acted and well-written. It is kind of odd that even into the second season we do not see more of the personal lives of each character to see how they are outside of work. I think for the action-based series like this one, that is less of a big deal than it is for the legal dramas, but it definitely helps with character development, which will keep the fans invested in the show. I think not showing characters outside the work setting was definitely something that tanked the show Chicago Justice, which was one of the few Wolf-produced shows that failed after one partial season. That said, the format does seem to be working well for FBI, and thankfully the show does not focus on just the two main characters to the exclusion of all others, so it balances the ensemble cast well. It is a good season that is worth watching.

DVD/TV Series Review: FBI Season One

 

Going into the 2018-2019 TV season, FBI was the newest entry into the slate of shows that have been created and produced by Dick Wolf, which includes the long-running Law and Order franchise and the Chicago-based franchise of shows. The series is set in the New York criminal division of the FBI and stars Missy Peregrym (from the great but short-lived series Life as We Know It, the movie Stick It, and her guest-starring and recurring roles on shows like Heroes, Tru Calling, and Smallville) as field agent Maggie Bell, Zeeko Zaki as Omar Adom "O. A." Zidan, Maggie's partner, Sela Ward as Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Dana Mosier (in a role that was recast after the pilot episode), Jeremy Sisto as assistant SAC Jubal Valentine, and Ebonée Noel as Kristen Chazal, who is a special agent and intelligence analyst.

The show is mostly a case-of-the-week procedural. Each show begins with some kind of murder, explosion, kidnapping, etc., that the team has to solve by the end of the episode. There is a storyline involving Maggie's deceased husband that becomes more involved as the season goes on, but otherwise, the focus of the show is just the weekly cases. The show does manage to do character development without giving much of a glimpse into the personal lives of the characters. This is definitely a hard thing to pull off and pretty much sank the show Chicago Justice, also created and produced by Wolf. Even though we rarely see the characters outside of their jobs, the writers do give a glimpse into who they are that the audience can get invested in them, and the action and suspense are enough to keep people coming back.

As far as the DVD set goes, as far as I can tell, the show has only been released on DVD in Europe, meaning the discs are Region 2 locked and will not play on US DVD and Blu-Ray players. So, you must have a region-free or a Region 2 player in order to watch the DVDs. They are basically a MOD set that just has the episodes. No extras, but they are closed captioned. So, if you prefer physical media to streaming and are willing to pay a bit more because the discs are imports, they are out there. Otherwise, you may just want to stream the show, especially if you are one who only gets the physical discs when there are a lot of extras and bonus features.

Overall, the season is good. It is well-written and acted, despite having a cast with actors who are either relatively new or had mostly been character actors. Ward definitely brought gravitas to the show as she was by far the most experienced member of the cast which was needed because while Peregrym and Sisto both had main roles in other shows, neither of them were major stars going into the show. It also has a backdoor pilot episode (much like Chicago PD got during season one of Chicago Fire) for the spin-off series FBI Most Wanted. So, if you are a fan of law-enforcement procedural shows this is definitely worth checking out.