After a blogger and an unidentified man are found murdered, Mac follows up on a lead given to him by Reed Garrett.

Synopsis:

Mac is interrupted from his conversation with a beautiful woman in his favorite deli by a text summoning him to the site of a double homicide. When he arrives at the scene, he learns the two men have been dead for about twenty-four hours. Flack finds a wallet identifying one of them as Michael Paley, a popular muckraking blogger. Paley was shot, while the other man, who has no ID on him, was apparently beaten to death. Stella finds traces of gold near one of the bodies, and Danny discovers a four-leaf clover in a shoe impression. Lindsay finds an odd collection of junk: a spoon, a battery, and a glass container. Danny identifies four sets of shoe impressions and posits that the killer may have had an accomplice, especially once he works out that the gun slid under a cabinet during the murders and was apparently retrieved after the second man was beaten to death. In the morgue, Sid tells Stella that he compared their John Doe to a picture of Paley’s blogging partner, Cam Vandemann and determined Vandemann isn’t their unidentified victim. The coroner found vaccination levels of Hepatitis A and B, malaria, typhoid and rabies in the man’s system, suggesting he may have traveled internationally recently. Stella notices number impressions in the man’s head wound. In the lab, Lindsay identifies blue green algae on John Doe’s shirt while Danny finds the four-leaf clover is a variety native to Ireland. Mac gets a call from Claire’s son, Reed Garrett, a blogger himself, who asks Mac to meet him at the diner. Mac responds and Reed asks the CSI to meet with Cam alone. Reed maintains Cam is innocent and has information, and Mac reluctantly agrees to meet with the blogger. Before Mac leaves the diner, the owner, Phil, calls him over and gives him a message from the beautiful woman he met the night before: his kindness to her convinced her to stay in Manhattan.

In the lab, Hawkes and Stella are able to recreate the pattern from the murder weapon, and are shocked to identify it as a bar of gold bullion. Stella and Hawkes go to a bank that just received a shipment of gold that morning, and are shown to the vault by U.S. Treasury Agent Pangle. They are joined by Adam in their hunt for the murder weapon, and the lab tech is the one who comes across it first. Hawkes tests the bar and finds blood on it. Agent Pangle tells the CSIs that the bar came from a shipment from the manufacturer, Elemental Precious Metals. Lindsay gets a lead on John Doe when she matches the blue green algae to a type used by a bar in the city for making green beer for St. Patrick’s Day. She and Danny go to the bar where the bartender, Finnegan Hansard identifies their John Doe as Charlie Cooper, a cad he kicked out of the bar. Charlie promised Hansard an engagement ring for his girlfriend—then delivered a cubic zirconium one and proceeded to sleep with Hansard’s girlfriend. Back at the lab, Flack tells Mac that Paley’s apartment was ransacked, while Stella has learned that Charlie has been in and out of China. Charlie also worked for Elemental Precious Metals, which made a mint on melting down reclaimed gold and turning it into bullion. Mac is distracted, noticing a newspaper with a listing for an apartment in SoHo—something he recalls the beautiful woman he met at the deli had circled. Mac contacts the realtor and sends her a message asking her to meet him at the deli the next night at 8pm. Mac turns back to the case, questioning Tom Weir, the owner of Elemental Precious Metals. Weir claims he can’t think of a reason why anyone would kill Charlie—he got along with everyone. Weir denies involvement in either death. Both Mac and Flack don’t believe his excuses.

That night, Mac meets Reed and Cam Vandemann approaches cautiously, protesting his innocence. He tells Mac that he and Paley were working on a story about international gold fraud and got a tip from a Chinese source. Cam was late to the meeting, and when he got there, he saw Paley and Cooper get murdered. Thinking the killer had left, he went in to see what he could do, and he grabbed the gun from beneath the cabinet when the killer returned. The man left when Cam threatened him with the gun. Mac tries to get Cam to turn over the gun, but fearing it’s the only thing that proves his innocence, Cam flees. Reed tells Mac the reason for Cam’s paranoia: the killer was in uniform—he was a cop. Flack is skeptical when Mac fills him in; Paley was killed with a .22, which isn’t a standard issue police weapon. Mac and Hawkes turn to the collection of junk Lindsay collected from the scene and put together that someone was using the materials to test the authenticity of gold. Tracing the clover and a piece of limestone to the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park, the CSIs are able to track down Vandemann and Flack brings him in—and gets the gun. Though the serial number is scratched off, Mac is able to recover it, and trace the gun back to Finnegan Hansard. Flack and Danny go to arrest the bartender, who runs—right through a St. Patrick’s Day parade—but Flack catches him. Flack interrogates the bartender while Mac and Stella question Weir: Weir’s company was trying to pass Tungsten off as gold and Paley and Vandemann were about to expose them. When Weir couldn’t get them to back off, he sent Hansard, dressed in a security uniform, in to kill the bloggers and their source. When Weir tells them they can’t prove he’s connected to the murders, Mac sends in Agent Pangle, who charges him with a litany of offenses, including counterfeiting and fraud. Reed thanks Mac, but Mac begs off on dinner, going instead to meet the woman in the deli, who introduces herself as Aubrey Hunter.

Analysis:

Halloween has always been the logical go-to holiday for CSI shows to build a murder around, but St. Patrick’s Day fills in pretty nicely here, even if at times the ties feel awfully coincidental—like the four-leaf clover and the limestone from the Irish memorial that happens to be right next to Paley and Vandemann’s home base. Still, there’s no arguing that it’s not fun to see Flack and Danny chasing a suspect through the big St. Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan… in which their other suspect is marching. A fun bit of trivia: apparently the show went out and got LAPD officers to dress up as the NYPD officers participating in the parade, a nice tribute to the real life heroes.

There are two pieces of big news in this episode, the first being the return of Reed Garrett, last seen falling victim to the Taxi Cab Killer in “Taxi”, nearly fatally. An aspiring journalist with a popular blog, Reed worried Mac, and while he never quite crossed the line into complete irresponsibility, he took chances the taciturn CSI certainly wished he hadn’t. Reed appears to have mellowed somewhat here, though he’s obviously still on the blog circuit given that he’s close to fellow incendiary bloggers Paley and Vandemann. Though Mac is skeptical about meeting Vandemann alone, he trusts Reed’s judgment enough to go along with the plan. Vandemann, played sympathetically by Aaron Ashmore, also trusts Reed enough to agree to the meeting, despite believing he has a good reason to stay far away from the authorities. Reed does leave out a big part of the story as to why Vandemann is so spooked: the blogger believes the man he saw murder his friend and their informant was a cop. It’s not clear why Reed doesn’t fill Mac in on this, other than the fact that it makes for a terrific (albeit ultimately misleading) act out; even Vandemann seems surprised that Reed didn’t tell Mac. Regardless, it’s great to see Reed brought into the story in such an organic way, and it’s nice to see that he and Mac are still close.

The other big news in the episode in the episode is the introduction of a new love interest for Mac, played by the sparkling Madchen Amick. The challenge of introducing a love interest for Mac is that the woman needs to bring out the playful side of the character; otherwise, the supposed chemistry falls flat. Claire Forlani’s Peyton Driscoll managed to access that lighter side, and Kristen Dalton’s Quinn Shelby proved a great foil for the somber CSI, but sparks didn’t fly with either Jessalyn Gilsig’s Jordan Gates or Julia Ormond’s Gillian Whitford. There’s a remoteness to Mac, and a reserve that is hard to penetrate, and any actress cast opposite him has to contend with that. Mac might be a brilliant scientist, but like shy people so often are, he’s simply a little bit awkward when it comes to making new connections. Gary Sinise seems keenly aware of this barrier his character unconsciously puts up, and it’s a testament to his skill and consistency as an actor that he doesn’t simply morph the character to make romance progress smoothly.

I’m pleased that Amick’s character, Aubrey Hunter, was able to believably get through to Mac and even get him to make the first move. While not seeming as closed off as Mac, Aubrey is grappling with her own problems when she meets Mac: she’s burned out on Manhattan and thinking of throwing in the towel if she doesn’t encounter a single act of human kindness on her trip to the deli. It seems like an arbitrary ultimatum, but people teetering on the edge of a decision will often let it come down to something that might seem small and relatively insignificant to others. Aubrey’s decision is likely about to go the other way when we first see her—a woman shoves her out of the way to get to the number dispenser at the deli. When she drops her newspaper, Mac picks it up, hands it to her and then offers her his second number. That could have been the end of it, but because it was significant to Aubrey, she decided to leave a note for Mac.

What’s even more surprising is that Mac tracks her down. Recalling the circled SoHo apartment listing in the paper—not surprising for someone whose job requires him to be as detail oriented as Mac’s does—he sends her a note through the real estate agent showing the apartment and even asks her out… inspired by something Reed said to him in reference to Vandemann, about having to sometimes take a chance on someone else. Intrigued, Aubrey shows up, and they awkwardly exchange a few words before she sits down with him. For all of her obvious attractiveness, Aubrey seems to possess a reserve similar to Mac’s, and also a similar desire to be drawn out. She’s nothing like the vivacious Peyton—but when Mac met Peyton, he very much needed someone outgoing and assertive, someone who would be the aggressor in the relationship. Because of Peyton, Mac has been at least partially drawn out of the protective shell he built in the wake of Claire’s death. Can anyone imagine the Mac of season one or two asking a stranger to meet him at a deli? It’s nice to see he’s made progress, and I’m curious to see where this new relationship will go.

Flack seems to have mellowed out a bit since last week’s intense interrogation of a suspect in “Uncertainty Rules”, but I had to raise an eyebrow when he claimed that an Irish temper is “not really a problem for me.” That’s not quite an accurate statement, especially this season in the wake of his shooting of Simon Cade. Flack seems to be carrying a fair amount of anger around this season, as well as a certain world-weariness that he never seemed burdened with until his girlfriend was murdered and he executed her killer. Flack even seems to have washed his hands of Danny’s problems, which he used to relentlessly take on in previous seasons, even when met with resistance from Danny. Flack’s frustrated response upon learning that Danny’s badge had been stolen—and that Danny had avoided reporting it missing—in “Flag on the Play” was not followed up with a heroic attempt on his part to recover the badge—a notable change from his behavior in the past. Seeing Danny lag far, far behind Flack in their pursuit of Hansard made me wonder if Danny’s injury was slowing him down, or if it was the fact that he didn’t have a badge to flash when breaking through the parade participants (many of whom were NYPD officers). No good can come from Danny’s badge being missing this long—and probably in the hands of Shane Casey.

The humor in the episode comes from the always reliable A.J. Buckley, notably when Adam joins Stella and Hawkes in the vault and sees the gold bullion stacked in piles all around him. “This is what all the money in the world looks like,” the lovable lab tech sighs. “So pretty!” When searching for the bar that was used to kill Charlie Cooper, Adam is caught sniffing a gold bar by a scowling security guard. Adam’s excitement is always fun to watch, and it’s rewarding when he is the one to discover the bar the team is looking for.

Source: Twitter here and here. Thanks to perlnoir on TalkCSI for the heads up.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a snowy park surrounded by blood, the CSIs come to suspect she may be the victim of a vampire cult.

Synopsis:

Mac, Flack and Hawkes stand over the body of a young woman whose excursion to Central Park on a snowy day to take photographs ended in tragedy. Hawkes suspects she bled to death from a puncture wound to the neck, and Mac notices part of her ear appears to have been bitten off. In the morgue, Sid confirms that the young woman died of exsanguination, and points out an unusual scar on her wrist, while Danny develops the photographs from her camera, including several of a young man the CSIs suspect was her boyfriend. Stella and Flack retrace the woman’s steps through her photographs and find the building where she lived. The doorman identifies her as Estelle Christensen, and the man in the photographs as Estelle’s boyfriend, Keith Borgese. He tells Stella and Flack that Estelle and Keith used to go to Central Park together every day. Mac questions Keith, who tells him that he and Estelle fought the day before, so he wasn’t with her in Central Park the day of her murder. Mac wonders if the fight led to violence, but Keith breaks down and says he should have been with her, that he could have protected her. Hawkes runs a fleck of dried blood found on Estelle’s body believed to be from the murder weapon and gets multiple DNA hits on it. One gets a hit in CODIS: a tattoo artist named Billy James. Flack and Hawkes question Billy, who sports a scar similar to Estelle’s on his wrist. Suspecting one of his tattoo guns might be the murder weapon, Hawkes confiscates them. He tests them out at the lab, but none of them match the mark the weapon that killed Estelle made, and Flack reports that Billy’s alibi checks out.

Estelle’s parents identify her body and tell Mac that they brought their daughter to New York as a young girl. She loved the city. Mac, noticing a scar similar to Estelle’s on her father’s wrist, vows to find her killer. Sid stops by Mac’s office later to share a theory: acting on a hunch, he looked up the scar on Estelle’s wrist and found that it was consistent with a cutting ritual by a group known as Sanguine or real vampires—people who look at vampirism as a kind of religion. They believe they discover a higher plane through consensual blood exchange. Danny and Flack go over Estelle’s apartment, where Danny discovers an exposed roll of film in the refrigerator. Danny develops the film and finds pictures of some sort of ceremony. He recognizes Billy James and spots Keith in one of the shots, and notices an older man in several of the photos, holding a blade of some sort. Mac pays a visit to Estelle’s father and asks him about the scar and the pictures. After an initial denial, he relents and identifies the older man as Joseph Vance, the master of the local vampire haven. He tells Mac that Joseph has known Estelle since she was a child, and that he asked Joseph to keep an eye on her. After Danny identifies the blade in the photograph as an ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol for eternity, he and Flack crash the haven and arrest Joseph.

Joseph tells Mac he has never harmed anyone, and that all he did was offer Estelle love and support. Mac is skeptical, and disturbed by Joseph’s practices. When the missing piece of Estelle’s ear is found in Joseph’s apartment and Hawkes identifies some of the blood on Joseph’s ankh as belonging to Estelle, it seems like the CSIs have their killer. But Danny finds foreign DNA on the piece of ear, and Mac assembles the team to try to put Joseph at the scene of the murder. Stella mentions that Joseph is claiming innocence, and threatening to sue the crime lab, saying they planted the ear in his apartment. The team discovers a discrepancy when they realize Keith’s blood is on the ankh, but he didn’t have a scar on his wrist. Mac brings Keith back in and the young man breaks down, claiming that the haven changed Estelle. He followed her to the park that day and attacked her in a rage, killing her. After Keith is arrested, Mac meets Estelle’s father in Central Park and gives him her photographs.

Analysis:

There’s an elegance to “Sanguine Love” that suffuses the entire episode, giving the whole thing a very stylized feel. Director Norberto Barba lingers over images of the snow-covered park, while haunting piano music plays over many of the winter scenes, and a cello punctuates the scenes with the vampire haven. Despite the grim subject matter, there’s a real beauty in the imagery, whether it be the bright red blood on the snow or the softly lit room where the Sanguines gather. The episode’s languid pacing and lingering shots set it apart, and also give some weight to what could be a silly subject matter. Vampires are all the rage right now—from Twilight to True Blood to The Vampire Diaries, they’re everywhere, and hotter than ever. The problem with putting them in a crime drama is that it runs the risk of putting the story over the edge, into absurd territory—something this episode does manage to avoid.

That the episode is penned by one of the actors on the show only brings more scrutiny. Following last season’s less than successful effort by Melina Kanakaredes, “Grounds for Deception”, which took the show out of New York to Greece for an outlandish action adventure escapade, I can say that Carmine Giovinazzo’s first credit for the show is much more true to the tone of CSI: New York. Instead of taking some sort of dramatic trip into his character’s past or turning Danny into 24’s Jack Bauer for an hour, Giovinazzo has written a restrained, fitting entry. Somewhat surprisingly—and gratifyingly—Danny doesn’t even take center stage in the hour; rather, it’s an ensemble effort with Mac leading the charge. It’s so refreshingly free of vanity that one can forgive Giovinazzo for shoehorning a song from his band, Ceesau, into the scene in which Flack and Hawkes go to interrogate the tattoo artist Billy James. The catchy tune, while perhaps not as natural a fit for the hour as the haunting piano and cello music, isn’t out of place in the edgy tattoo parlor.

Though it’s admirable Giovinazzo avoided turning the episode into some sort of absurd paean to Danny’s awesomeness, I can’t help but wish there’d been a little something more for Danny here—not a storyline or a connection to the victim or her family (that is wisely left to Mac), but perhaps a flash of the passion and energy that made Danny so interesting in earlier seasons of the show. He’s thankfully free of his albatross in this episode, but the marriage of Danny and Lindsay has proved the old adage that happy couples don’t make for interesting television. Of course, it doesn’t help that Danny and Lindsay have none of the heat Eric and Calleigh do on CSI: Miami or any of the deep connection Sara and Grissom shared on CSI. I’m hopeful that the return of Shane Casey alluded to in “Flag on the Play” will spell the return of a more dynamic storyline for Danny, who really is at his best when he’s under duress. Certainly it will be more compelling that having Danny quipping that he gets to scour the lingerie football players’ website because he’s “married.”

Danny does have a great line about Adam, delivered as he talks to Stella after he’s developed the film from Estelle’s camera. He tells Stella that Mac had originally assigned Adam the task, but the “kid” had no idea what Mac was talking about. “The digital generation,” Danny shakes his head. The comment is doubly amusing given that Danny isn’t that much older than Adam, and there are no doubt many high tech devices that Adam knows his way around—like the credit card theft device in “Some Buried Bones”—that Danny wouldn’t have the first clue about. It’s too bad A.J. Buckley wasn’t around for this episode—he, Robert Joy and Anna Belknap are apparently contracted for fewer episodes this season than in years past—because I imagine he’d have a clever retort for Danny. Stella tells Danny, “I hope you hit him,” no doubt a little unsettled that the guy she spent the night with in “Epilogue” doesn’t know how to develop a roll of film.

There’s some fun had at the Sanguine’s expense, but not as much as one would expect, which is refreshing as well. Mac does cast a skeptical eye Sid’s way when the quirky coroner comes to him with his suspicions. “I’m no vampire!” Sid protests, citing his source as “the world wide web.” Sid admits he has his oddities, but “with everything that’s out there right now, the idea of ingesting another person’s unscreened blood is quite frightening.” Sid might not be into the practice himself, but he’s the perfect character to put it all together, and the look on Mac’s face whenever Sid shares some odd trivia or peccadillo is priceless. Flack’s snark as ever is right on target: at one point he asks a vampiric suspect if he’s going to bite him, and when searching Estelle’s apartment he says to Danny, “That’s a relief—she’s got a bed.” Danny replies, “What did you think? She’d have a coffin?” Flack can always be counted on for a laugh—even the edgier, darker Flack that has emerged this season isn’t above a wisecrack or two.

Mac himself isn’t immune to a bit of disdain for the Sanguines. When Joseph Vance tells Mac he’s “deeply disturbed by Estelle’s death,” Mac offers a quick retort: “You’re deeply disturbed—I’ll grant you that.” The casting of Carlo Rota, who made a splash on 24 as sullen Chloe O’Brian’s husband Morris, was inspired; he brings a gravity to the role of Joseph that a lesser actor wouldn’t have offered. Rota’s cultured accent and polished poise give Joseph credibility he wouldn’t have otherwise had. Charles Shaughnessy similarly brings a somber note to his role of Estelle’s father, and he and Mac share a nice scene at the end of the episode, when Mac joins him in Central Park and brings him some of Estelle’s photographs. Once again, I was gratified to see Mac take the lead, simply because it helped to demarcate the episode as a typical CSI: NY outing, as opposed to an ill-advised departure. For a first venture into writing for the show, it’s a solid one.

On a lighter note, while CSI has test dummy Ballistics Joe, CSI: NY has a seemingly endless supply of pig cadavers. One has to wonder how many (fictional) pigs have died to help out the New York City crime lab. In this episode, Hawkes gamely tests out weapons on a porcine cadaver, getting frustrated when none of the tattoo guns prove to be a match for the weapon that killed Estelle. Each of the CSI shows has a few hallmarks, some of them cutting edge technology—like NY’s virtual autopsy or CSI: Miami’s massive touch screen display—while others, like Ballistics Joe on CSI and the pig cadavers on CSI: NY, are surprisingly low tech, but in their own way, just as critical to the CSIs’ investigations.

Thanks to perlnoir from TalkCSI for the heads up.

Warner Brothers is teaming up with Wonderland Sound and Vision to produce the series. “It felt like the nature and style of what they do with their show-within-a-show would be fun to see in new media,” said Wonderland’s Peter Johnson. “It’s a fun, subversive way to allow these characters to play in the margins.” The initial run will include 10 three-minute episodes that will air on TheWB.com and CWtv.com. The websites will also feature gag reels, actor confessionals, photo galleries and behind-the-scenes clips.

Buckley recently starred in the independent film Skateland, which will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this Monday, January 25 in Park City, Utah. Buckley plays Teddy Tullos, a Grateful Dead fan who owns a skating rink. The movie takes place in 1983, and it follows a young man named Ritchie who is looking to get out of the small Texas town.

“It wasn’t the starring role or anything, but it was a great character piece of this guy trapped in the 1970s,” Buckley said of his part. Now that he’s in his thirties, the actor is portraying different characters than he might have played in the past. “I like getting older,” he revealed, “now it’s the cops and the lawyers. It’s a fresh chapter.”

Despite taking place in Texas, Skateland was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana. A native of Canada, Buckley is used to filming in cities like Vancouver for movies and television shows that take place elsewhere. Even his current role on New York films in Los Angeles, California rather than the Big Apple. “I once went to Bulgaria to shoot Oregon — I thought for sure when I read the script I was going to Oregon,” the actor said. “Terrible movie — that movie was called I Need to Pay My Bills.”

CSI: NY now pays the bills, allowing Buckley to be more picky about which roles he chooses. Fans of the CW series Supernatural may recognize Buckley as Ed Zeddmore, a wannabe ghost hunter that crosses paths with the Winchester brothers from time to time. However, Buckley almost didn’t get the part. “Originally they didn’t want me,” he explained. “I am a huge dork, let’s not kid anybody. But casting was like, no he’s too good looking. I never get that, are you kidding me? Usually I’m not good looking enough and now I’m too good looking?”

Buckley doesn’t know if he’ll be called back to film an episode for Supernatural’s fifth (and possibly final) season, but fans have not seen the last of Ed and his GhostFacers pal Harry Spengler (Travis Wester). The pair are set to star in an upcoming web-based spinoff. Buckley and Wester were hired to write 10 episodes for the horror/comedy series, which will begin filming in Los Angeles this March.

The opportunity to join New York couldn’t have come at a better time for Buckley. “When I booked CSI, I had $32 to my name and was living out of my car,” the actor revealed. “To go from that to this, getting to travel around the world and meet different people – I’m completely grateful!”

The success of the CSI franchise over the past decade is no surprise to Buckley. “They’ve got great writers and they’ve cast great actors,” he said. “And it’s such an old tale; it’s Sherlock Holmes. Who did it, and how did they do it? They took that old theory, made science sexy and took this fresh look. People really respond to that.”

The New York edition of the franchise sets itself apart, the actor added. “New York is a character on the show,” he explained. “I don’t know many people that aren’t fascinated by it. It’s so film noir. Then you throw an actor like Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) into the mix and it speaks for itself.” But is there any rivalry between the three CSI series? “I think every CSI wants to be the top,” Buckley said. “It’s a healthy rivalry. [Executive producer] Pam [Veasey] expects to be number one and be the top. You can’t get complacent in the sixth season.”

Being on the air for so many years does have its advantages. “Going into your sixth season, it allows the writers to go deeper within the characters,” Buckley said. “We can get into the intricacies of them and what makes them tick. The audience really feels for these characters. They’re so invested in them.”

Fans may be invested in Buckley’s character now, but there wasn’t always much for the actor to work with. “When I joined the cast, there was no description of who Adam was,” he explained. “Pam Veasey has always said that my character is kind of the comedy of the show. But over the years he’s started to understand who he is and show his strengths.” And the actor behind the quirky lab tech does get “a fair bit” of input into his character. “That’s the wonderful thing about working with Pam Veasey and [executive producer] Peter Lenkov,” Buckley said. “They really take the time to listen to anything you have to say about your character.”

The actor has the opportunity to share his opinions about Adam as a character, but Buckley is not the science expert he plays on TV. “You know what, when I was in high school, I was a horrific student,” he revealed. “I’m a poster child for ADD, and I’m terribly dyslexic. Growing up, learning for me was next to impossible. So Adam’s journey of education and my journey of education are night and day. I’m sure my science teachers back in high school that watch the show now have a good laugh.”

Luckily for Buckley, playing Adam isn’t all about pronouncing difficult scientific terms. Some episodes have given the actor the chance to delve into more emotional territory. “One of my favourites was the episode ‘The Party’s Over’,” he shared. “There’s a child that commits a murder and they send me into the interrogation room to talk with the kid. It was the first real episode where I got to sink my teeth into something – to get out of the lab and not be saying science words, and to emotionally connect to the dialogue.”

At the start of season six, Buckley was pleasantly surprised by his character’s romantic involvement with coworker Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) in the premiere episode, “Epilogue”. “I remember showing up on the set and people asked me, ‘Have you seen the script yet?’ I took a look and I was like, ‘Oh, wow!’ I think it’s a great storyline,” he said. “Adam and Stella have always had a flirtatious thing back and forth. The guy needs some love! He’s in the lab all the time. Stella’s a sexy woman, so why not?”

Buckley enjoys working on CSI: NY, but he revealed that he has another ambition: to take his acting to the stage. “One of my dreams is to come to London and do a play,” he explained. “Not even one of the big shows – I would be happy doing a small theatre in a small town. Just to immerse myself in the work would be great!”

Source: Five.tv. Thanks to perlnoir on TalkCSI for the heads up.