This was the first (and one of very few) post-Sopranos show I fell in love with enough that not only did I make a point to watch new episodes as they aired, but I even bought on DVD (as sales permitted). I can see the characterization take a little while to gel, but the cast's chemistry is there from the beginning - or, at least, the cast minus Maggie Lawson's chemistry is there from the beginning, as Anne Dudek was originally cast as Det. Lasseter's partner for the pilot.

Speaking of the pilot, the DVD set features both the "Domestic Pilot" that originally aired in 90 broadcast minutes, and the "International Pilot" that originally aired in two broadcast hours. The difference in content is a mere 9:43, but the longer version feels a lot more fully developed. There isn't much additional in terms of overall narrative, so much as just more little moments that make the episode feel a little more personable, and a little less perfunctory.

The two strongest episodes are "Forget Me Not", in which Kurtwood Smith plays a retired cop with early onset Alzheimer's who is certain he's unraveled a contemporary murder but has conflated it with a case from decades ago that he failed to prove. There's an element of reverence and tenderness to the episode that elevates it.

The other is the finale, "Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast", in which Det. O'Hara goes undercover to investigate a sorority besieged by spooky harassment in the wake of what appears to be the suicide of one of its members. This episode was directed by John Landis and written by series creator Steve Franks and its lead star, James Roday. It's the sharpest, most fully developed story in the bunch, with very little fat to be trimmed. A scene of Shawn and Gus reluctantly having dinner with Shawn's dad feels extraneous, until the revelation at the scene's end, which carries the episode to an even higher level of cleverness.

My only real complaint with this season is how frequently jokes come from toying with lazy implied-gay-tension dynamics. One entire arc in "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me, Oops He's Dead!" is built on Shawn and Henry clashing over what the former perceives to be the troubling "metrosexual" habits of the latter. This, after much has already been made of the fact that the case centers on three men who are each found naked in a field with no memory of how they got there. The immaturity of the gag becomes outright tedious, and detracts from what is otherwise a brilliant episode.

Not surprisingly, the weakest and most disappointing episode is "Who Ya Gonna Call?", in which the case is built around a guy with disassociative identity disorder, and one of his identities is feminine. The gag of discovering his feminine wardrobe and seeing him dressed as his feminine identity is absolutely milked. That's particularly frustrating as the let's-all-gawk-at-the-guy-wearing-women's-clothing stuff runs roughshod over what are actually pretty clever plot twists.

Like the pervasive flip-phones, hopefully these elements can one day be waved away as an embarrassingly dated artifact from a time capsule, but it would be disingenuous to make such a claim presently.

My only other qualm is that, like every other series ever built around a singularly talented character, it becomes frustrating as they prove themselves episode after episode, but every single character continues to resist their insights at every turn. Because we know that Shawn and Gus grew up together, it's particularly annoying whenever Gus is the one insisting that Shawn doesn't have anything or can't do something. I completely understand the storytelling demand for conflict between the two, and when Gus's objections are over Shawn's methods, rather than the validity of his insights and talents, those arguments are both more believable and more entertaining.

In terms of bonus features, the lion's share are on Disc 1: James Roday's audition, a show promo fluff piece, a featurette on the show's writers, and a blooper reel. Unfortunately, only Roday's audition is particularly entertaining or interesting. None of the six audio commentaries are very insightful, and largely consist of the commentators laughing at their own work and talking about how many takes they did and how much they had to cut because too many hilarious things were said and done during filming. I don't think I learned anything of interest from any of those tracks.

There's a lot of gold to be found in the season's episodes, though, and on the whole I was satisfied by how well this first season has held up so far - particularly given that these being the oldest episodes, they're also the ones I've seen the most in several of USA's ubiquitous marathons.