CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV Series) Pirates of the Third Reich (2006) User Reviews

Lady Heather Returns

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 2 February 2023]

When the corpse of a young woman is found half-buried in a remote area of the Nevada desert, the Grissom and Nick meet Capt. Brass investigate the case. The body is half-naked, with shaved head, severed right hand and branded with number 19 on the upper arm. In the autopsy, Dr. Robbins finds that she had flesh-eating disease, and Grissom questions whether it might be injected into her. Wendy finds that one eyeball belongs to a male and she was tested positive for two drugs. The eye of the previous owner is Jack Landers, who was lobotomized and is totally insane and also branded with the number 13. When the victim is identified as Zoe Kessler, who is the estranged daughter of Lady Heather, Capt. Brass, Grissom and Catherine go to her apartment and find a note and three messages in the answering machine from the Betz Clinic. At the clinic, Catherine and Greg learn that Zoe and Jack participated in a sleep study and the other participants did not have any problem. Now they will search the desert to look for Zoe's missing hand.

"Pirates of the Third Reich" is a great episode of "CSI", with the return of the beautiful Lady Heather. The bizarre plot has the participation of the entire team trying to solve the murder case, with a surprising conclusion. The relationship of Grissom and Lady Heather is another attraction of this show. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Pirates of the Third Reich"

Entertaining to a degree, but rushed and ridiculous

[Metal_Robots · 6/10 · 30 July 2022]

This is one of the episodes that seemed to have grand ideas but fell way short in the writing department and ended up feeling like a bit of a rushed mess.

They lifted a smattering of true events from the despicable life of Nazi "doctor" Josef Mengele, then chose the bizarre inclusion of an actor "Jack" who was actually in Pirates Of The Caribbean (why make connections between this episode and POTC by using the actor and title anyway? It makes no sense), and Lady Heather's brief and fairly pointless return.

They chucked it all in a blender, spent seemingly about half an hour in the writer's room botching the pieces back together and called it done.

While I was entertained (for mostly the wrong reasons) by the silly unpredictability of this episode in a "what the hell are they going to chuck in next?" kinda way, it really has to stand as one of the most rushed, worse-written episodes of CSI ever.

As a B-movie pastiche, Halloween special it would have been perfect, but it's impossible to take seriously and cannot be remotely compared to the best episodes that have come before this point.

Having said all this, it's still worth seeing for its amusement value, though I am watching all of CSI in chronological order and at the time of writing this, having just reached this episode, I hope the show returns to quality and they continue to keep the silly episodes like this to a respectable minimum.

CSI Pirates

[chefz2 · 5/10 · 27 May 2009]

I think what's missing for this episode is more of the villain. Typically, CSI will spend more time with the 'bad guy' and how and why. The guy barely makes an appearance, and it seems that he sprung into the Nazi form out of nowhere. More could have been spent on this; the history, the mindset, the underground.

I'm glad they brought back Lady Heather. The ending scene makes me wonder to what extent she and Grisom were together (she implies earlier on of a relationship that he ended, whether intentionally or by just being Grisom).

I hardly think this episode indicates jumping the shark, but I don't think it matched the level of interest that it could have on a plot that really had great potential.

This is a classic

[petergillette · 1/10 · 2 January 2007]

Captain Jack is about the funniest character ever on any TV show. This one has Nazis, dominatrix, (spoiler alert), a twin switch-up, a detachable eyeball, a corpse eating plant, a frozen body, Siamese twins with bloody ribs and one dead just writhing on a basement floor senselessly... I smell a shark jump. This episode takes all of those elements which would typically be the "sexy" or "gruesome" part of a typical CSI, and combines them into central points of one episode. Like Law and Order SVU, it turns into a really dark comedy by the end: everything is so ludicrous that we cannot help but laugh, because taking it seriously would be gravely dangerous to our psyche, not to mention insulting. Lady Heather and Gil fighting over a whip, however, is central to the arc of the series--and that should tell us something.

A Very Strange And Sick Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 2/10 · 17 February 2008]

A dead body is found in the windy desert. She's emaciated, bald, and has some sort of "brand" on her with a number (#18), reminding Brass and Grissom of similar people who suffered this kind of fate 60-some years ago. What is going on?

It really gets bizarre in a hurry, as the medical examiner and DNA specialists discover the woman had someone else's eye put into her socket in the last week and that she had some really weird viruses in her that were eating her organs from the inside out. Some of this is really gross.

It gets even more weird as they find a lunatic guy on the streets who claims he is "Captain Jack," a pirate. (No, it's not Johnny Depp). At the doctor's office, Captain Jack is missing an eye, apparently was lobotomized and has the same "brand" that the dead girl had, expect his brand says "19."

If this episode wasn't strange enough, "Lady Heather," a sex-sicko from the past whom Grisson (William Petersen) always liked, gets involved when the dead girl turns out to be her daughter.

What is so typical of these secular-progressive-written shows is that "Lady Heather," who commits crimes in this CSI-Las Vegas show as well as despicable sex acts, is shown as a "good guy" and a sympathetic figure. In this story, she kidnaps a guy and is literally whipping him to death....and she gets a hug from Grisson. Are you kidding me?

Just Went Way Too Far!

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 9 February 2021]

Even though many of the cases in this series deal in the bizarre activities of humans (that's why it was set in Las Vegas), we are at least used to clever forensics work and deduction. An emaciated woman is found dead in the desert, head shaved, branded, an eyeball from someone else stuffed in the socket. It is now a freak show, and it gets worse. All things seem initiated in a sleep clinic which seems ordinary (I spent the night in one before being diagnosed with sleep apnea). Anyway, it turns out the woman is Lady Heather's daughter, and if it wasn't bizarre enough, it gets even more so. If it had been broadcast on Halloween night it might have some appropriateness. I hope we get back to some semblance of real crime drama.