Review of Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost

Fans of this serious deserve a medal for being the most patient fans on the planet. Most fans have had to resort to DVD supplements (or the Hallmark Channel) to even catch all the installments. Luckily places like Office Depot and big chain Grocery Stores carry most of the DVD's cheap. CBS hasn't been very helpful, the first two episodes were aired in reverse order and the latest two episodes (parts 6 and 7) put on a shelf for over a year while negotiating with Tom Selleck to do the TV series BLUE BLOODS. Part 6 ultimately aired with little fanfare in a terrible time slot and Part 7 finally found a decent home (and will be released on DVD August 2nd, probably). Even if you were able to catch all of them on TV the time period between films was pretty lengthy to remember some of the plot points in the continuing story line. The 6th film, SEA CHANGE, for example, the one that sat on the shelf and then given a bad time slot, brought back guest characters from all the previous episodes. Nifty idea if you watch all the DVD's in a month, but not spread out over 3 years. For the record in case you need to catch up, the story order of the DVD's (not the order they were aired or related to the book title order) are: 1. Night Passage 2. Stone Cold 3. Death in Paradise 4. Sea Change 5. Thin Ice 6. No Remorse 7. Innocents Lost. So are they worth it? Yes. They are character-driven moody dramas with just enough quirky moments to add some jokeless humor. Jesse Stone is a cop and a drunk who goes from being an LAPD robbery-homicide detective to police chief of a small town in Massachusetts. He solves all the cold cases (unsolved crimes), including the grisly ones that no one in town even knew existed, merely as a way to pass the boredom. This actually upsets the status quo of townsfolk that would rather leave their not-so-peaceful past buried. Story lines unexpectedly spill into sequel films making this a continuous story-line series.