Emotional Cold Cases (Cold Case)

Member Name: pmcds

Product:	Cold Case
Date:	02/12/08 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great dramas - the music choice is phenomenal

Disadvantages: Quite dark and depressing at times

There is a plethora of US crime/drama/thriller series on our screens at the moment, and it is becoming increasingly hard to pick out the good stuff from the forgettable. Since 2003, one of these series has been Cold Case, featuring the cold cases that have not been solved that are assigned a team to see if they can solve them.

Cold case units are given less publicity in general than the more frontline up to date crimes, and this is also the case on screen, with the majority of TV dramas showing actual cases rather than those in the past. Cold Case does a very good job of creating old cases, and providing us with an insight to the original crime, usually involving a murder or a missing person, and then having the team re-interview people from the case and go over the details. 9 times out 10th case is solved, often with emotional consequences. This does have the penalty of making most episodes dark and depressing, but the skill levels of the actors and thos ebehind the scenes stop it from being too much so.

Cold Case has a relatively unknown cast, with almost all of them being particularly related to this series. The skills are on show with actors such as Kathryn Jeffries and Thom Barry, John Finn and Jeremy Ratchford, the four main actors featuring in nearly all of the episodes to date. There have also been powerful performances from other actors since the show started in 2003, but I find that it is more the atmosphere of each programme that stands out, the cases themselves doing the talking as opposed to the main cast leading the way. The extras for each show always do a good job, the acting never sub standard, and the cases are often quite emotional viewing, showing that the writers and producers are doing their job!

But the best thing about Cold Case is the music selection involved. Each episode is wrapped up by a few short clips as the episode plays out to a strong ballad of some sort, often by a very well known artist such as Cyndi Lauper's True Colours, but sometimes a relative unknown. Other songs to end the episode ave included hits from Nat King Cole and Journey, with Counting Crows and other powerful musicians having their music 'Cold Cased'.

All in all, I find this series to be very powerful, and unlike most dramas these days, it is quite easy to watch random episodes, as the back stories aren't as integral to the individual episodes as they can be in shows such as Bones or NCIS, or even CSI to a certain extent. Cold Case is now in its sixth season and is still going strong. I recommend watching it if you get a chance, but it can be very emotional and powerful.

Summary: Excellent US crime/drama series