TV-Reviewed

This shouldn’t exactly come as a shock to any long-time CSI fan. William Peterson, who plays the ever popular supervisor Gil Grissom, has been looking for a way out for a few years now. He had a short stint in a play which allowed him to leave the show for a brief period of time.

Anytime an actor plays a single character for this long (eight seasons thus far), the odds of him/her wanting a change is only natural. Most shows don’t last this long, but we’ve seen a few walk away in the past — David Duchovny comes to mind, when he wanted out of Chris Carter’s The X-Files.

I’ve been a huge fan of the show from the very beginning. The pilot episode drew me right in and I’ve been hooked. It’s just too bad there are a hundred CSI knockoffs polluting the airwaves now.

Personally, I welcome the move. I think it’s about time that this be done and over with already. The whole question of “will he go” or “when will he go” has been a distraction for the last two years in my view.

William Peterson as Gil Grissom

I think the show could use some fresh blood. The series has gotten very stale as far as the characters go. Anything remotely interesting only happens at the end of the season when someone’s contract is about to expire and the writers aren’t sure what’s going to happen. The cases are still good — the miniature story arc was absolutely awesome, but the character development has become… boring to say the least.

Seeing Grissom go will hopefully be the catalyst for some big changes. We’ve already learned of some of what the next season has in store for us…

Gary Dourdan will be in the premiere of the ninth season, but the producers aren’t yet tipping their hand as to whether or not his character, Warrick Brown, will die or not. I think he probably will, but I really don’t like the idea of literally killing off characters, at least on a show like this. It may be more fitting on a show like Lost, where people are frankly expected to die.

Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) will be back for a few episodes, but we don’t know exactly how many.

Previously-announced addition Lauren Lee Smith (The L Word) joins the cast in the third episode as new CSI Riley Adams. Not being mentored by Grissom should make her stand out from the rest. She’ll be more or less replacing the already-departed Jorja Fox.

Liz Vassey and David Berman’s characters (Wendy and David) will become full-fledged CSIs and Wallace Langham (Hodges) will also become more prominent. Frankly, I think Hodges is already a bigger part of the show than he needs to be sometimes.

And then there’s Grissom’s replacement. All we know for now is that a professor will come into play at some point in this season, during a two-episode case and he’ll be a consultant who helps the CSIs bring in the culprit. He’ll eventually become Grissom’s replacement. We don’t know who the actor will be, however. Kurt Russell, Laurence Fishburne and John Malkovich are said to be at the top of CBS’ wish list, but it looks like Malkovich won’t be able to do it due to scheduling conflicts. That’s quite a wish list if you ask me.

Season nine of CSI should be an interesting one.