2 l October
3 - 9, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
BY JAY BOBBIN
William Petersen stars in “CSI: Vegas,”
premiering Wednesday on CBS.
‘CSI: Vegas’ gives a long-popular crime
drama new life
If a new series has you thinking it’s
2000 again instead of 2021, you can be
forgiven.
When creator and executive producer
Anthony E. Zuiker’s Las Vegas-set “CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation” launched 21
years ago, it quickly became a bigger hit
than many anticipated ... establishing a
long-running franchise that also came to
encompass the spinoffs “CSI: Miami,”
“CSI: NY” and “CSI: Cyber.” Now, what’s
old truly is new again as CBS revisits
the initial location and welcomes back
some of the original cast members with
the premiere of “CSI: Vegas” Wednesday,
Oct. 6.
A sequel to the first show, the latest
iteration reunites William Petersen (also
an executive producer again) and Jorja Fox
as romantically linked – in fact, formerly
married – forensic detectives Gil Grissom
and Sara Sidle. Other returnees who’ll
be familiar to the “CSI” faithful include
Wallace Langham as David Hodges and
(in multiple episodes) Paul Guilfoyle as
Jim Brass. Paula Newsome also stars as
the crime lab’s current leader, and Matt
Lauria, Mel Rodriguez (“The Last Man on
Earth”) and Mandeep Dhillon are among
additional cast newcomers.
“I think that between Las Vegas,
‘Miami,’ ’New York’ and ‘Cyber,’ we did
hit a sort of audience exhaustion,” Zuiker
allows. “It was always in the back of our
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minds that this would probably come
back, because ‘CSI’ was such an iconic
show and it was mystery-based, it would
make perfect sense at some point. I believe
we made the crime genre white-hot, and
it’s still pretty hot to this day, and I think
the timing is interesting because the world
has changed.”
Indeed, then-cutting-edge forensic
techniques were a big part of “CSI’s”
appeal ... and they still appeal to Petersen,
who’s an executive producer as well as a
star of the new show, as he was the first
time. “I sort of jumped at it,” he says,
“because of the idea of revisiting Grissom
and Sara, to see who we are now. Plus, it”s
a different world than it was 20 years ago.
The idea of being able to come back into
the land of science, I thought, was really a
great opportunity.”
While allowing that “we had to diversify
the cast, based on the times,” Zuiker
feels “CSI: Vegas” has a strong suit in
presenting principal actors from the
original run again.
“It wasn’t that difficult” to get them
back, he maintains. “It was really just
sitting down with Billy (Petersen) first at
a diner in downtown Los Angeles, much
like when we sat down at a cafe in 1999.
I expected much more of a struggle, but
I think he saw enough familiar faces who
had been around from Day One to say
‘Yes.’ ”
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