Fans of Eva La Rue and CSI: Miami will be somewhat disappointed this season. Due to budget constraints, the Natalia Boa Vista actress will be written out of multiple episodes, the first of which airs this Sunday. Just a few days after the unfortunate news hit, La Rue called up CSI Files’ Shane Saunders to talk about her upcoming absence from the series, projects she’d like to tackle next, and much more.

CSI Files: The big thing right now is how you are going to be appearing in a reduced capacity this season.

Eva La Rue: Yeah. Not last year, but the year before was the first year I got reduced. I was out of three episodes that year and I was supposed to be out of three or four last year. But, with Emily [Procter, Calleigh Duquesne] getting pregnant, they needed me so they added me back into those episodes. This year I thought I was going to be in all the episodes but as soon as the season started then work said no, I was going to be out of three [episodes].

CSI Files: It wasn’t your decision–

La Rue: Actually, it was four episodes but our Executive Producer Ann [Donahue] helped me out and put me back in one. She found a way to make it work. Our network is saying budget.

CSI Files: So this was CBS’ doing?

La Rue: Yeah. It wasn’t the writers, it wasn’t the producers, and I know they’ve all been saying “Oh my gosh.” Actually, with as much as I’ve been working last year and this year, having these three episodes off is pretty nice. [Laughs.]

CSI Files: It would have made sense if this all happened after “Countermeasures.”

La Rue: Yeah, yeah, you know what? It would have been great to leave it on a cliffhanger because you didn’t know if I was alive or dead. That would have been great.

CSI Files: Talking about that cliffhanger: was there ever a chance you were not going to return this season?

La Rue: I suppose. A few of us were renegotiating our contracts but I don’t think they did that [cliffhanger] because of that.

CSI Files: Does it feel like Miami is nearing the end of its run?

La Rue: I don’t know. CSI: NY was only ordered for eighteen episodes this year and there’s been talk that this is probably it’s last year; I don’t know if that’s true or not. We only got ordered for nineteen episodes this year instead of our usual twenty-two or twenty-four. So I don’t know what’s going to happen. We always get preempted for a couple of months by football on the east coast. They’re saying we don’t need twenty-four episodes because they’re going to run reruns on nights that are still getting preempted by football. So [twenty-two] actually ends up being plenty; that may have helped us get another year, actually. If we save money and it still ends up being a lucrative show to produce then that’ll maybe help us last another year.

CSI Files: When CSI: Miami does end would you want to do a comedy or another drama?

La Rue: I would love to do a comedy. I’d love to do a one-camera comedy; I like the idea of doing a single camera comedy better because I think it feels more like a movie comedy. A sitcom is definitely a better schedule, though. That would give me lots of time with Kaya [her daughter] and Joe [her husband] because the schedule is three weeks on, one week off. You get some downtime to recoup and get some stuff done at home and see the people that you love. So that would be amazing to do.

CSI Files: This year’s Halloween episode titled “By The Book” and we hear something happens to you with a “vampire.”

La Rue: No, I think that’s Emily! Emily gets bit by the vampire and she’s chasing a vampire dude through a forest. Intitally, I was the one who was bitten and chased. Now it’s Emily being bit and chased around…

CSI Files: Speaking of ending up in these precarious situations it seems that whenever there’s a spotlight on either Natalia or Calleigh, there’s a need to victimize the both of you. What’s that all about?

La Rue: Well, you know, they have the need to victimize us but at the same time I think they always show how strong we are. I don’t mind it because we usually come out on top. I would be more offended by it if it was constantly getting knocked down and not getting back up again.

CSI Files: In “Stiff” Natalia had a little moment with a guy but obviously things did not go so well. Is there a possible love interest coming up for her or any chance of sparks flying between you and another character?

La Rue: I don’t think so, not yet. Right now we’re shooting Episode Nine so I am not in next week’s episode which is Episode Five and I’m not in Episode Nine which they’re shooting now. I don’t know what episode number it is but I’m not in the episode we’re shooting during the second week of December.

CSI Files: You get a lot of comments on Twitter about things that don’t even pertain to your character, especially in regards to the Calleigh/Eric (Adam Rodriguez) romance. What are your thoughts on that pairing?

La Rue: I think it’s great. It’s tough. We don’t have a character-driven show so I think the fans get really frustrated because they don’t get to see any consistency in terms of what’s happening romantically. We kind of just have to take it with a grain of salt. It shows up where it shows up.

CSI Files: I have to be upfront and honest: when Natalia first arrived during season four there was a little bit of loathing her on my part, but of course masterfully played on your behalf. But Natalia has done this complete transformation from a character that we really weren’t sure what her agenda was to becoming a fan favorite.

La Rue: I would have to agree with you. I didn’t like me either in the first year. I thought the audience was going to [in a singing voice] hate me! We all know somebody like that; who’s a new girl or a new guy and they just kind of fuck up left, right, and center because they’re so insecure and coming into an already established team. You try to find your place. But I understood what they were writing for her so I sympathize with her.

CSI Files: What else can viewers expect this season?

La Rue: Episode Eight we revisit this serial killer that we just saw last weekend. I think that’s a fabulously creepy storyline. The fact that he gets away with stuff because he’s so wealthy is infuriating and crazy. So we revisit that and then this next weekend, even though I’m not in it, is about Memmo! I love that character. He’s a bad, bad guy.

Follow Eva La Rue on Twitter: @evalaruecappoo

Shane Saunders is a freelance writer and reviewer. His work can be seen on EDGE Network and ShaneSSaunders.com. Twitter: @ShaneSSaunders.

Thanks to Shane from TalkCSI for the help!

CSI fans got a treat in season eleven of the flagship show with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation creator Anthony E. Zuiker‘s return to the writers’ room full time. In addition to penning this week’s entry, “Sqweegel”, which features a character from his debut novel Level 26: Dark Origins, Zuiker is releasing his second novel with co-author Duane Swierczynski tomorrow, entitled Dark Prophecy. Like its predecessor, Dark Prophecy is a digi-novel, featuring both a full-length novel and cyberbridges: filmed footage that tells a story alongside the novel. Zuiker sat down with CSI Files to discuss the changes he made from the first to the second book, in both the story and the cyberbridges, as well as his return to CSI this season.

For Zuiker, the publication of his first novel was a learning experience, and going into the second one, he found there were things he wanted to change. “I had to really put the book under a microscope after the first go-round and say, ‘What did we do wrong? What did I do wrong?’ and really make adjustments because I wanted to make sure we understood going forward what the DNA of the digi-novel is,” Zuiker said, noting over-hyping of the format and the graphic novel-esque cover as two such mistakes. He also expressed concern that the first cyberbridge may have turned viewers off: “The conscious choice to have a snuff film for the first bridge wasn’t the smartest idea in the world because it really set the tone that this is how the whole book is going to be,” Zuiker noted. “I should have learned that lesson in the CSI pilot when they showed the maggots crawling out of the gunshot orifice. The dials all went down in the testing of the CSI pilot when you saw that. The network note—I think it was from [CBS President] Nina [Tassler] and I think she was right—was that if we keep that in the audience was going to think it’s all about gore and shock value, and they’re going to miss the forensic message. After the testing, we actually cut that part out of it, and the rest is history. [For Dark Origins,] I was hell bent on doing something too hot for TV, so I got ahead of myself in terms of doing something that was jarring and shocking and not seeing forward that it was going to set the tone for the entire book and the experience, and that it might turn women off. Whatever you do, it has to include success for women, or you won’t be a success. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in the industry is that it’s all about women. Whether it’s women in the industry, whether it’s women consuming content—if that is not a market that you’re catering to, you’re pretty much in big trouble. So I had to make that radical adjustment.”

Zuiker also found that the digi-novel experience itself could be a bit jarring for readers. ”Philosophically for the digi-novel, the out-of-context interstitials that complimented the read—where you read up to a point, you stop, you log in, you watch a digital continuation, then you go back for a verbal recap—was a bit speed bumpish and cumbersome,” he commented. “Some people wanted the imagination to take over, they didn’t want to slow the book down to get a recap, they didn’t log in; a lot of people didn’t want to stop and open the book and log in and go back to the book. So we had a lot of rhythm problems in the experience.”

The book’s publisher expressed some concerns about Sqweegel, the forensic-proof killer who wore a full body suit in order to avoid leaving any DNA evidence at his crime scenes. “From the Dutton end, they felt like Sqweegel was just a bit too alien, and that was hard to digest for the reader. I don’t necessarily think that’s necessarily true, but we played ball. I said, ‘We’ll keep Black Sqweegel in some respects, but we’ll go into new territory.’ And that’s what we did for Dark Prophecy,” Zuiker noted. While the first book focused on Sqweegel, Zuiker turned the spotlight on hero Steve Dark for the second novel. Dark is a forensicist who worked with the elite unit Special Circs to bring down some truly frightening serial killers. Once again retired from Special Circs, Dark finds himself pulled into a new case.

“We had to take the position in Dark Prophecy that we were going to do a coming out party for Steve Dark,” Zuiker said of the book’s hero. “If we were going to succeed, we were going to have to find a way to launch James Bond in this genre.” In focusing on Dark, Zuiker also found a more fluid way to integrate the cyberbridges into the book. “So we began to think about, digi-novel-wise, let’s ditch the twenty out-of-context scenes, and let’s shoot a one-hour movie cut into eleven segments,” he continued. “Number two, let’s utilize the tarot cards as, from a position of storytelling, almost in this Slumdog Millionaire style, to the point where you would slap down a card personally in the one-hour movie and tell Steve Dark’s story, while at the same time slapping the same card down for the Tarot Card Killer that’s leaving these tarot cards at crime scenes and staging the crime scenes. So we were able to do both in this experience: the book can stand alone without ever logging in, and the one-hour movie can tell a separate story about our hero. And they didn’t fight each other. That was probably a really radical decision we did, and we feel that’s pretty great. Because then you can enjoy both without having them conflict with each other. Because what we’re finding out more and more is that although people want different levels of engagement, you have to at least maintain the sanctity of the read with the imagination—that has to stay the same.”

Zuiker also made some changes to the social community at Level26.com, an interactive message board and news site where fans of the books can come to get the latest news, view the bridges and discuss the series. “We re-skinned the website to be lighter, brighter and book-friendly,” Zuiker commented on the site’s new look. “I think the issue we had with the website earlier was that it was too horror-centric. It was dark; it was devious. We brought a lot of people to the site that weren’t necessarily fans but were there for all the wrong reasons. So we had a tough time honing the community’s harmony because of the subject matter. Now I believe with the rotation carousel that’s going to be going on and the light and the same spirit—it looks like the cover of this book—is definitely going to invite book readers to feel like they can be safe in their environment.”

Zuiker notes that there will be several options for watching the cyberbridges: “On the book stage, the rhythm is you read 35 to 40 pages and then you can enter a code and watch the first part of eleven cyberbridges. They’re about five minutes long. They will all be in succession, and they’ll speed bump every tarot card, so it doesn’t cut the movie off in the middle of nowhere. It will stop before every tarot card. The only option to watch the movie front to back is if you thumb through the book and keep entering codes. There’s no magical button you can press to watch it wall to wall. We are going to be selling the movie for $5.99 through iTunes where it’s uninterrupted a la Joss Whedon‘s business model of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, where there will be a charge for every individual third—$2.99 for each third of the movie—or $5.99 to watch the movie straight through. And that will be a completely well-mixed version of the movie.”

The option to watch the movie straight through will also be available on the iPad app for the book. ”Now on the iPad app, there will be an option once you thumb through the book and unlock all the bridges, then there will be an option to press a button to watch the movie straight through on the iPad,” Zuiker noted. “But it won’t let you do that until you read the book. I feel like I’ve got to maintain the integrity of the experience rather than just say, ‘Hey, watch it separately.’ It’s still is a digi-novel, meant to read and watch, read and watch, read and watch. And the iPad is such a great, laid-back experience, it’s ideal for the digi-novel.” Zuiker previewed the iPad app for the book, which will take readers even deeper into the novel: “We’re doing a really comprehensive iPad app with Hooray, where you can not only read the book cover-to-cover, read the book, watch the bridges—it looks beautiful on the iPad—but also the third level of engagement is to read the book, watch the bridges and you’re able to collect evidence while you’re reading. So words will be pulsing, you’ll press the word, a box will pop up with an explanation of the character, you’ll be able to bank evidence for a future storyline for Steve Dark, narrated by Steve Dark. You’ll be able to turn the page, a bullet will fire, it will break the screen then it will go back to normal. You’ll be able to play with the tarot cards, where you can swing the Hangman back and forth, you’ll be able to play with the swords, spin the Wheel of Fortune, make the dog bark if you touch it, shake it like a snow globe for the Five of Pentacles, and just kind of have some fun interactively with that experience. And then you have three different ways to do it: cover to cover, read and watch the bridges, or read and watch the bridges and do all the fun bells and whistles. So we’re hoping that’s out by Halloween. That will ideally probably be the first time in the history that someone’s really trying to perfect the interactive novel experience on the iPad.”

Zuiker believes the iPad experience will definitely be superior to that on the iPhone or iPod Touch. “We had a really great app for Level 26, but to consume that on the iTouch, you’re asking someone to do 1500 flips for 400 pages. 3.5 flips per one page is a lot to ask, but the iPad is a beautiful apparatus for an app,” he said. “I think at a $12.99 value, to receive a full motion picture and a four-hundred page book and all the bells and whistles on top of an invitation to a social community, for that kind of price is pretty fantastic. If people are enjoying the consumption of the Kindle, I think they’ll really enjoy the level of visual engagement that Hooray is doing. That will be out October/November-ish. They’ll basically do the same thing for the iPhone and iTouch, [without the bells and whistles]. I think the iPad is going to catch on more and more, and the capabilities of what it can do—and being able to line up time-wise with the execution of the digi-novel is just a nice marriage.” For Zuiker, the device is the perfect medium for the digi-novel: “I always wanted the digi-novel to be a laid back experience, so you can read the book and not have to leave your current position to consume the movie. I’ve not hidden from the fact that going back and forth from the book is a bit clumsy, but I didn’t want to take the book out of the consumer’s hands.”

Zuiker is pleased with the arc for Steve Dark in the book, which opens five years after Dark Origins concluded. Dark, more or less forced out of Special Circs, finds it’s not so easy to leave his old career behind. “In book one, we were catching him after twenty years of chasing darkness and working at Special Circs with Riggins. The brooding part of the character was really informed through book one, and when the most important thing in his life, a pregnant Sibby, was being visited by his number one nemesis, Sqweegel, he really had no choice but to be pulled by back in,” Zuiker noted. “By the time we started book two, it was five years later, and we got to a point where Steve Dark was—and I kind of got this idea from Donnie Brasco, where Donnie Brasco went through all that crap to bring those mob guys down and it was just like photo op, here’s your check, here’s your medal, thank you! So he just sat there like, ‘Wow, all that for that moment and nobody cares?’ So when [Dark] paid off his indentured servitude to the government, he found himself going back to being a father after five years, being out of Special Circs for good, and the casual interest he was taking in the Tarot Card Killer began to rejuvenate his juices, and I think what he learns the most about himself in book two is that he cannot not catch killers.”

This compulsion to hunt killers informs Dark’s character in Dark Prophecy: “I kept telling Dan Buran [Steve Dark] on set, it’s almost like a werewolf. Once the moon comes out, the hair is going to start coming out of your fingers, the claws will get long—you cannot not catch killers. But there is a stone in your shoe that you have to be able to exorcise to have the confidence to really break through and have the courage to grow and get out of this brooding phase.” Zuiker goes on to add that this is a big turning point for Dark in the book and the movie: “I think getting out of the brooding phase and becoming a whole man is so much a part of this book, and without giving too much away, that surfaces in the movie. That somebody at a young age that he was close to ended up dead, and he couldn’t do anything about it, he didn’t quite understand it, but he remembers the words of his best friend who said, ‘You’re going to be something someday.’ And I think that began his interest in becoming a CSI, or at least try to solve what happened. And he was one of those guys like myself that wants to do everything at the highest level. He didn’t want to just be a cop; that didn’t last long. He wanted to catch the best of the worst. Riggins is trying to warn him not to cross over to this dark side, and of course he didn’t listen, and Riggins sees the downward spiral. It’s not until he has an emotional breakthrough that he’s able to accept the newfound life he has with his daughter.”

Fans of both CSI and Zuiker’s book series will see the worlds collide on Thursday when Black Sqweegel shows up on CSI to challenge the Las Vegas team. The idea was born out of a trailer Zuiker masterminded before the season began. “I had Josh [Caldwell], who works in my office, cut together a trailer of Sqweegel and CSI,” Zuiker revealed. “And then I went and showed it to Carol [Mendelsohn, CSI's Executive Producer], and I said, ‘What do you think about this for an episode? CSI meets their match: a forensic-proof killer. How do you catch somebody who doesn’t shed any evidence?’ And of course I was very nervous because I was back on CSI full time and I wanted this to work. Carol loved the idea, [Laurence] Fishburne (Ray Langston) loved the idea, so I felt very confident that we could get it off the ground. We began to circulate the book, Carol read it and the episode broke relatively quickly on the board. She and I went right from the board to the script. We had a wonderful time writing it. And CBS called when the script came in and they deemed it an instant classic, which was really fun. We were one actor away from putting a cherry on top of the episode. We got Daniel Browning Smith back for Black Sqweegel, and the last piece of the puzzle was, how do we get a great actor [for the major guest role]? And we were able to graciously land Ann-Margret.”

Zuiker was thrilled to have landed Ann-Margret for the role of a philanthropist Sqweegel takes an interest in. “We wanted someone iconic to play the lead victim,” Zuiker revealed. “My literary agent in New York [told me that his] best friend is the manager for Ann-Margret. I pitched [the manager] the one-liner for the show, and he liked it. About four days later, we got on the phone with Ann-Margret, I pitched her on the phone, she thought it was fantastic. She was traveling from London back to New York on the Queen Mary, and she wanted to read a script. So Carol and I wrote this really great script and we e-mailed it to Ann-Margret at the Queen Mary and they actually printed it out and hand delivered it to her. So she read this really scary script at night and was very taken by the role and said yes. And she’s incredibly picky about the roles she takes. She’s definitely anything but over-exposed.”

Zuiker teased the episode a bit, pointing out that Black Sqweegel has an understandable agenda in what he does, a philosophy Zuiker adheres to strictly when he creates his villains. “We talked about as we developed the book, the one thing we did do successfully and are keeping is that we are creating villains that have a point of view that’s endearing. It’s not just some arch crazy guy,” Zuiker said. “You’ll see that the point of view of Black Sqweegel in CSI is that if you receive an accolade for being an upstanding citizen, [his MO is:] ‘I’m going to intrude on your home without you knowing it and see if there’s anything in the closet I should know about so I can discount that award.’ And there lies Ann-Margret in the episode, who just got the key to the city from Oscar Goodman for being the first lady of Vegas in terms of her philanthropic work, but as Sqweegel delves deeper into her life, we realize she has a dirty little secret. And therein lies that arc for that specific villain.”

Zuiker was very impressed with Ann-Margret’s performance, noting how much she got into the role. “The great thing about her is that she’s incredibly fit. She did most of her stunts. She still has all the bruises!” Zuiker said. “She is so unbelievably good in that episode. I remember watching it at the mix and saying, this is actually timeless television. So that was really interesting. We’ve since become friends; it’s just become a great thing. We did The New York Post together, we shot a half hour live from her home talking about the show, she’s done a couple of TV appearances featuring the book. We really got lucky that we had the chance to work with somebody so great who enjoys the whole process.”

For his part, Zuiker is thrilled to be back on the show that launched his career in Hollywood. “[It's] pretty great,” he said of being back in the CSI writers’ room. “I wasn’t nervous at all. There were some old faces, some new faces. I was really well received over there; it felt like old times. I think the only difference was I felt like I was much better than I ever was. It felt like Carol and I could finally sit in the room as creative equals. I could correct some things that she did, she could correct some things that I did. She and I felt for the first time kind of like Ann [Donahue, CSI: Miami Executive Producer] and she were back in the early days. They could both kind of feed off each other, and now we’re in the same place.”

Zuiker is happy with the direction season eleven is taking. “Once CBS came back with the campaign of ‘come for the murder, stay for the fun,’ we really were on a mantra to make sure we were doing shows that got back to more Las Vegas, back to the first couple of seasons, that were promotable, that we could sell, like the Justin Bieber continuation of the premiere or pool shark or vampire convention or Sqweegel or Walking with Dinosaurs,” Zuiker noted. “Just going back to the thing that [Jerry] Bruckheimer taught me in Brentwood during the fires we had five years ago. He said, ‘How do you sell it? When you approach these episodes, just ask yourself, how do you sell it.’ That’s pretty much his advertising and movie background kicking in. Those are the biggest mistakes I made in CSI: New York when we were doing stories about the docks or sandhogs or real estate—things you couldn’t sell. It wasn’t going to work in a promo. But shark in pool? You can sell that. You’ve got a forensic-proof killer? You can sell that. Walking with Dinosaurs? You can sell that. So we’re very excited about this season. We’re excited to evolve Larry Fishburne’s character. We know that the stunt casting works in this show all the time: The Rascal Flatts [show] had big ratings; Taylor Swift had big ratings. These things are really important to us, so we look for every chance we can do that.”

Though he’s not sure what the future holds for the CSI franchise, Zuiker is pleased with the moves for the flagship’s two spin-offs. “I think that the moves to Friday and Sunday [for CSI: NY and CSI: Miami] were good moves,” he said. “I think it’s a confidence move. I read somewhere that [Deadline's] Nikki Finke said [the slots were] the eventual graveyard; I thought that was sort of unfair. Only because shows that solid, like NY and Miami, can stay on Friday and Sunday for a long, long time. They can also help lead into other great shows like Blue Bloods, and really build a Friday, build a Sunday. The landscape has changed: there’s [fewer] dollars, people are consuming content in different ways, and I think CBS, like all the networks, approach the schedule in its totality. Of those 21 time slots, what is going to carry CBS into victory? And that’s going to take some shuffling. So all we can do is the best job possible, and tell the most dynamic stories possible, and then hopefully the audience still feels engaged. That’s all we can really do.”

Zuiker isn’t sure whether CSI itself will eventually change time slots, but he’s excited to be back on the show during what he sees as a crucial time for it. “I don’t know how long we’re going to last in this Thursday time slot, or if we’re going to flip with The Mentalist at some point,” Zuiker says. “But this is a really important season for us, season eleven. I really wanted to get back to the writers’ room, share everything I’ve learned, pay it forward to some of the younger writers, definitely free Carol up as much as possible so she can do The Defenders at the highest level, and work with her again. You forget so much when you’re not in the game. Obviously I develop TV shows with my company, but just being with other writers [is great]. And [seeing] how [Carol] thinks. She’s just so good at that job. The thing about Carol is that she always asks the right questions. And I think asking the right questions is so [important to] writing.”

And if the publication of a new novel and writing for CSI wasn’t enough, Zuiker has several other projects on his plate: “[My memoir] Mr. CSI is slated to come out spring or summer of next year. We’ve sold Detailed, a bodyguard show, to CBS, about the life of Kim-Maree Penn who’s a real life bodyguard. And also Robert Ludlum‘s Treadstone, citizen spy. We’re working on that with John Glenn, the writer of Eagle Eye. We probably have three or four projects we’re really excited about that we’re still pitching and developing. So it’s been a challenging season for me to not only be on CSI full time, but launch 5-7 shows, and have a speaking career, and launch a book, and direct and finish a movie, on top of doing a social game for Playdom that’s been acquired by Disney, tentatively called Celebrity Rising. And I’m going to be doing a book tour in France and speaking about cross-platforming at a conference in Tel Aviv called Cellcom in November.”

But at the moment, Zuiker is excited about the publication of Dark Prophecy—and looking ahead to the third book in the series, tentatively entitled Dark Enigma. “One of my main goals in my career is to keep this crime imprint going,” Zuiker said. ”We hope if this can become half as successful as some of the great crime writers, we’ll still maintain our philosophy of writing really compelling villains so they have a point of view. I don’t know how to write any other way.”

The list is compiled based on five major criteria: direct responsibility for creative output, prolificness, reputation among studio and network executives, Nielsen ratings and Emmy attention and/or critical praise. Major executive producers like Jerry Bruckheimer and CSI creator Anthony Zuiker were not included, but Carol Mendelsohn (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), Ann Donahue (CSI: Miami) and Pam Veasey (CSI: New York) did make the list. All three women have been with the franchise since their shows began, but they aren’t bored yet. “It’s a constant dance,” Donahue explained.

For Mendelsohn, Zuiker’s return to CSI has been a godsend. In addition to her work on CSI, this fall she will serve as an executive producer on the new CBS series The Defenders. “I felt the universe sent me a guardian angel in Anthony,” Mendelsohn said.

Over on New York, Veasey has been dealing with the departure of leading lady Melina Kanakaredes (Stella Bonasera). Sela Ward (Jo Danville) has taken her place in the cast. “It happened almost at the 11th hour,” Veasey revealed. “We had scripts prepared and we had to do rewriting and think of ways to introduce her without being repetitive to our viewers.”

Veasey’s favorite TV moment came when she was working on the police drama The District. “[W]e received a letter from a woman who watched an episode in which [star] Craig T Nelson visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” she said. “When Craig placed his hand on the wall in the episode, he put it right on her son’s name. She was so grateful. That meant a lot to us.”

Donahue has been with Miami for years, but her big break came while working on a very different crime drama in the early 1990s. “The man who taught me everything was David Levinson, the executive producer on 21 Jump Street,” she explained. “He just has this ethos that he wants to pass on his skills.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter. Thanks to Shane from TalkCSI for the link.

As CSI Files previously reported, Rodriguez is coming back to the series despite his previous plans to leave. He appeared during season eight on a recurring basis, but now he’ll be back full time. “The best thing that happened was when we decided to part ways last year I spoke to [executive producer] Ann Donahue and said, ‘What’s important to me is coming back and fixing the character properly. I don’t want to leave the audience wondering, ‘What happened to Delko?’ How ever many episodes it takes, let me know and I’ll be there,’” Rodriguez explained to Fancast. “She loved that idea, three episodes turned into 11, and so I was bouncing back and forth with Ugly Betty and CSI Miami.”

Despite the sporadic appearances last season, Rodriguez said his return as a full time team member will be very smooth. “This is like family—’the prodigal son returns’—so it’s not awkward at all,” the actor said. “Even the crew members were like, ‘It’s great to have you back every day.’”

The relationship between Delko and fellow CSI Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Procter) won’t be going anywhere during season nine. “I think they’re going to ride that train until they figure out a way to derail it or pull it into the station,” Rodriguez revealed. “I don’t know what’s in store, but I look forward to whatever it is. There are just so many ways you can go.”

One thing he knows for sure is that Miami will not be writing in Procter’s pregnancy. “It would have been interesting, but it’s abrupt,” he explained. “It’s a little abrupt. There wasn’t enough build up to have a pregnancy.”

Whatever the series holds in store for Delko and the rest of the Miami team, Rodriguez is glad to be back—and he’s grateful for the support he has received from his fans. “I just want to say thanks for your support and all of the love that you’ve shown,” Rodriguez said. “You guys are what matters and that’s why I’m coming back. I hope I can deliver for you!”

Donahue will continue to serve as executive producer and showrunner for CSI: Miami. Mendelsohn will stay on as executive producer and showrunner for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She will also serve as executive producer on the new CBS series The Defenders, which debuts this fall on Wednesdays at 10:00pm ET/PT.

According to CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler, “Carol and Ann are two of the best showrunners of this decade.” She continued, “The ongoing success of CSI and CSI: Miami is testimony to their incredible creative talents and leadership skills. It gives the network great confidence having them at the helm of these two important series.”

“Carol and Ann are among the elite showrunners in our business,” said CBS TV Studios president David Stapf. “They were with CSI from the beginning and each still runs their respective show with amazing creativity, precision and vision. Every studio dreams of having producers with this kind of passion and leadership on the set and in the writer’s room.” He added, “It was very important to us that Carol and Ann remain not only part of CSI, but the CBS family too.”

Sources: Deadline Hollywood and The Hollywood Reporter

Miller will play Walter Simmons, a man who transfers to Horatio’s team from the night shift. The character is from Louisiana, and he is an art theft specialist. Miller was originally added as a guest star, but the network recently picked him up as a series regular.

With the show entering season eight, Donahue and the rest of the creative team behind Miami took the opportunity to bring the show back to its roots, starting with the season premiere. “Out of Time” literally revisits the past as fans get a glimpse of how the team first came together. “[T]he way we approached this season was to go back to basics,” Donahue explained. “That’s why we went back 12 years in time to the beginning in a way to reinvigorate ourselves and then, in turn, our actors loved it and then hope our audience will.”

“It just came to us that way and we all thought it would be so interesting to see this team before they were this team,” Donahue said of the decision to include the flashback. “It’s like when you want to go back and see yourself at your first day of kindergarten or your first day of high school and see who you were and how you met and really how shiny you were back then. Emily Proctor (Calleigh Duquesne) made this choice where she played it so optimistic and brand new knowing that she really hadn’t seen a dead body; she was really so charming. David Caruso (Horatio Caine) was just great because he was discovering science and his character was realizing the science of the future.”

“We also, of course, got to see where his sunglasses came from,” Donahue added. “In the episode, Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) is still a tow-truck driver and he and Horatio keep meeting up because there’s so much water in Miami that tow-truck guys are always pulling stuff out of the waterways. Usually a dead body. And Eric keeps telling him, ‘When I pull out a really great pair of sunglasses I’m going to give them to you.’ It’s sweet and charming and we’ve done about 170 episodes and this one, if not the best then it’s one of the best.”

Adding new characters has to be done slowly, Donahue said, and Miami will be introducing a few new faces during season eight. “We actually have two new characters – one being Eddie Cibrian (Jesse Cardoza) and one being Omar Benson,” she explained. “When you mix a cake, you do it slowly and so we show Eddie in the flashback episode… actually I don’t want to call it flashback because it’s not that. It doesn’t feel like a flashback, it feels like a genesis, a beginning. But we see Calleigh on her first day and it’s Eddie Cibrian’s character’s last day. We see him momentarily and then in episode two he is coming back. We see him in the first five minutes of episode two and then a few members of CSI: Miami are taken hostage.”

Cibrian and Benson are joining the cast, and Rodriguez will have a slow exit during season eight. Despite the cast shake-ups, Donahue could not fathom Miami without its leading man. “The show rises and falls on David’s back and I will say with modesty that it’s sometimes the number one show in the world and I think that has to do with David,” she said. “People adore him. I cannot imagine the show without him and I wouldn’t want to.”

Donahue offered a glimpse into some of the cases the Miami team would work this season. “We’re doing one where someone is able to kill someone from 30 miles away,” she shared. “I won’t tell you how but it’s a fabulous mystery and the science is great. We’re doing one with a really interesting phenomenon about food in America. It’s getting to the point where corporations literally trademark our food and they own it… like they own the seeds. There’s a really good mystery where someone gets sick from E. coli and our people push to prove that it’s a form of negligent homicide. Then we do an homage to The Hangover where we have two guys who wake up with blood all over them and the groom is missing.”

As CSI Files previously reported, Miami will also be doing a three-series crossover with fellow franchise members CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: New York. The episodes will air during the first week of November sweeps. This season, Donahue said, “We’re telling a lot of great stories and a lot of great mysteries.”

In the season seven finale, “Seeing Red”, Delko went missing in the Florida Everglades. The character nearly came out in a body bag when Rodriguez and CBS failed to come to terms with a new contract. The network recommended that producers kill off the character. “But I wasn’t comfortable with that,” Rodriguez said. “And I spoke to [executive producer] Ann Donahue and she wasn’t comfortable about this either.”

“[W]e really wanted to make sure that the character had a proper sendoff,” Rodriguez continued. Donahue petitioned CBS “to make this work”, the actor explained. The result is that Rodriguez will appear in ten episodes over the course of the season.

Rodriguez’s final episodes on the show will be a period of transition for his character. Delko will change professions and examine his relationship with Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Procter). Of the romance between the two CSIs, Rodriguez said, “Like any great love story, I don’t know that the books will ever be closed on them.”

Zuiker saw his first dead body in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1999 when he was in the process of creating the original CSI series. “Now, when a civilian wants to do research with the real CSIs, you have to make submissions to the Public Affairs Office,” Zuiker explained in a blog post on Level26.com. “I did and they granted me ‘eight hours only’ for the year of 1999.” Zuiker knew eight hours was not going to be enough time. “By the grace of God, I went to high school with Monte Spoor who’s a real-life CSI,” he added. “He took me under his wing and we rode along together the entire week, ten hours a day, including midnight lunches at Caesar’s Palace.”

One of the crime scenes Zuiker visited was the home of a man who was mad at the police and tried to burn his house down while he was still inside. The body had been removed before he arrived, but Zuiker described his impression of the scene itself. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been inside of a burnt-down house, but it’s very creepy,” he said. “The smell of burned life is a smell you can never forget in a million years. The way fire enjoys ripping lives apart, turning pictures into ashes, melting children’s toys without a care — it’s so tragic. The one piece of evidence the CSI pointed out was an air conditioning unit that fell from the roof to the bottom floor and hit the victim on top of the head. Ouch!”

Afterward, Zuiker was invited to see the victim’s body. “When I went to the coroner’s office, I met Dr T,” he said, referring to Clark County medical examiner Dr Gary Telgenhoff. “He’s a really cool guy who drives a love wagon (don’t ask) and has a great sense of humor. He also is a musician and we’ve used a song of his on CSI. The song was called ‘I’ll Speak for You.’ It’s a song about a coroner being the voice for the dead after they’ve been killed. You gotta love it.”

“So, when I arrive for the autopsy, I get dressed in a lab coat, face mask, and booties,” Zuiker continued. “Through the window, I can see the burned body curled up on the slab. Nasty. Dr. T said, ‘Wait…’ When you see your first dead body, it’s not that bad. It seems fake really. The skin was black crusted with pink flesh. The hair was burned off. And the hands were clenched in fear. Weird.”

Zuiker described another memorable experience he shared with CSI: Miami showrunner Ann Donahue when they flew to Florida to research the first CSI spinoff. “We had a blast writing the crossover, but the time had come for the pilot episode,” Zuiker explained. “So, like any Executive Producers worth their salt, we did our research with the Miami Police Department. And let me tell you, those guys couldn’t wait to show us a dead body.”

“That night, we went on a ride along with several detectives,” he continued. “These guys were all Latino studs who prided themselves on Cuban food and real talk. They were cool as hell. Anyway, we got a call mid-lunch about a dead body in a residential neighborhood. Apparently, he’d been dead for a week based on the neighbor’s complaint about the smell. We call that a ‘decomp’ (decomposition) in our world. Ann turned extra white. I started getting nervous. Not because of the sight of a dead man, but the detectives were insistent that we ‘meet him.’”

This crime scene was very different than the one Zuiker saw in Las Vegas. “When we turned the corner into the neighborhood, we could already smell the odor,” he said. “It’s hard to describe. Rotting flesh has a way of getting into your clothes and your nasal hairs. There is no way to escape it.” The man was dead in his bedroom. “Ann and I hid behind each other while the captain lit a cigar from outside the house,” Zuiker continued. “He used the smell of the cigar to mask the powerful stench of the body.”

“When we first saw him, he was bloated to the size of a 500-pound man,” Zuiker said. “I asked, ‘Was he a fat man?’ The detective laughed and said he was probably about 180 pounds. Huh? He’s huge. He explained that the bloating was from the gasses stored up inside of his body. Oh, my God. Really?”

“That’s when the Hazmat unit came in,” he continued. “The Hazmat unit (or Crime Scene Clean Up) was made up of three crazy men armed with metal spikes. They sawed open the bedroom window and climbed through. Then, out of nowhere, they started stabbing the man to let out the gasses. I literally saw him go from 500 pounds to 180 within seconds. It looked like a human balloon with a small leak. It was so nasty. Ann and I thought for sure we would be diseased by some airborne virus. We got the hell of out there. Next, a tow truck with a lift arrived and they hoisted him out of there and zipped him up. On the way out, they were talking about showering up and getting a burger. I’m like, ‘Burger??? I don’t think I’m ever going to eat again.’”

“Ann and I went back to the Delano and ordered some water and dinner rolls,” Zuiker shared. “We literally ate in silence and tried not to laugh. She said to me, ‘How did we get here?’ I said, ‘I have no idea. All I know is we’re doing another CSI.’ Ann nodded. I nodded.”

The original blog posts can be found at Level26.com here and here.