5/5 Quality!
  by Scott Baboyian (Washington, DC)
This is a great series. The current trend in Discovery/History Channel shows is ridiculous: some bombastic narrator is walking briskly down the street, blabbering away, as jump-cuts and overblown sound effects drown out the content. Or the other kind: shaky-camera, Blair-Witch-Project style, as usually idiotic people try to sound incredibly excited or scared of the material they are trying to tell viewers about, trying to jack up the mood and tension level, obscuring the source material, whether that source material is actually interesting or not. In both of these approaches, crazed sound effects, an altogether inappropriate level of false excitement and frequent commercial interruptions touting other, similar, series are all key ingredients.

The New Detectives is the opposite: a mellow narrator, moody yet very light musical score, and a focused, methodical development of the subject matter. Episodes go in depth, showing forensic methods used to solve actual crimes, many of which are well known cases. There is lots of science, and plenty of interviews with serious professionals. That being said, there is a mood and tone set here- and it is a creepy one, as this series deals mostly with terrible crimes. The music, narration, and some reenactments add to the atmosphere of quiet dread.

The steady pace and lack of grating sound effects and other nonsense fits the grim and frequently gruesome subject matter. This series is not for the squeamish or easily frightened, as it goes into pretty serious details of murders, serial killings, abductions, rapes, etc.

I love this series- the serious treatment of the subject, the mellow, yet still moody style, and the very in-depth documentation of real cases in which forensic science was employed to solve crimes, plus the great price point, make this an excellent DVD set.

5/5 Great watching!
  by kelly smith (Germany)
This DVD set is well worth the money. I had seen some of the episodes on TV, but many I had not seen were on here. The episodes cover an array of events, from young to old, and how the crimes were solved. Don't miss out on this set!

5/5 The best true-crime and forensic show ever?
  by Dr. David Webb, PhD (Edinburgh, Scotland)
My favourite true crime and forensic tv shows are 'The Real CSI: The New Detectives', 'The FBI Files', and 'Arrest & Trial'.

The Real CSI is a hell of a lot less dramatized than 'The FBI Files', but ironically, the lack of dramatic acting, the narrator, the background music, and atmosphere actually make it a more hitting, stunning, and real. Most of the shows involve local police and sheriff's office, and very rarely the FBI. This seems to make the crimes feel more real and understandable in laymens terms.

I am now of the opinion that this is actually a superior program to all it's competitors. My idea of fun is to watch this late at night, lights dimmed or off, on a huge Philips LCD tv (42-52 inch), with a logitech z-5500 surround sound system, and scare the living crap out of myself. Forget horror movies, there is nothing more scary than real life, real stories, and the psychology between human beings hurting each other.

'Man is the cruelest animal'.

5/5 Came just in time
  by Tracy L. Silva (oxon hill, md.)
I needed this CD to take to South America and it came in just under the wire.