The Vegas team is on the case when the Rascal Flatts’ bassist is nearly fatally electrocuted during a concert.

Analysis:

Popular country group Rascal Flatts is performing in Las Vegas when bassist Jay DeMarcus receives a near-fatal shock while playing during the concert. Jay is rushed to the hospital, while jump bass tech Travis Murray steps in so Gary’s band mates Gary LeVox and Joe Don Rooney can continue the concert. Catherine examines Jay, who not only doesn’t remember the accident but doesn’t remember the Rascal Flatts—and claims to not even like country music! He’s more of a rap guy. From the nature of the electrical burns on his arm, Catherine realizes this was no accident. She and Nick question Travis, who tells them he does a shock test on Jay’s system before every concert. Noticing a bruise on Gary’s face, Catherine asks him about conflict with Jay, and the singer admits that Jay wanted to pursue his own projects. Though they fought, Gary calls the band a family and denies sabotaging Jay’s guitar. In the lab, Doc Robbins stops Nick from performing a guitar-topsy on Jay’s guitar, pointing out that there’s no burnt flesh on the strings—meaning this wasn’t the guitar Jay was playing when he was shocked. Greg and Nick ask Travis why he gave them the wrong guitar, and he insists that he thought the guitar was in the case. Greg learns that a groupie wearing a t-shirt reading RascalFlattsPsychoBitch.com walked out of the hotel with a guitar. Nick and Greg locate the fan, Marta Petrovich, who proudly shows off the guitar, which she found in the dumpster. She’s crushed when the CSIs claim it as evidence. Back at the lab, Nick and Greg recreate the circuit that caused the shock that wounded Jay. Tracing it to one of the 220 boxes, the CSIs lift prints off it—and match them to Travis Murray. The tech admits he just wanted to play with the band once, and that he never intended to hurt Jay—just give him a little shock. Jay triumphantly returns to the stage, incorporating his love of rap into a new song for the band.

The bloated body of an older man is discovered in a river, sans a boat. Langston surmises he’s been dead for at least 24 hours. Langston and Sara find some puzzling objects on the body, including a World War II-era watch, and a bottle opener with the CIA logo on it. In the morgue, Doc Robbins tells Langston the man didn’t drown, pointing out a non-fatal head wound, as well as the fact that the man had stage four prostate cancer. Sara finds blood inside the man’s vest, indicating he was dressed after being murdered. Langston runs the man’s prints and gets a hit to Vance Colton, a former deputy director of the CIA—and Catherine immediately gets a call from Craig Halliday, a CIA Associate Director, who wants to claim the evidence in the case. Langston and Sara continue to root around, learning that Colton directed Operation Blackwood against the East German Stasi. Catherine gets an address for Colton, but by the time Langston and Sara arrive there, they discover Halliday and the CIA already dismantling the house. The CSIs go out back and find a canoe rack missing one canoe and one paddle. Sara finds green plastic, possibly from a canoe, leading both CSIs to wonder if Colton was in a canoe at some point. Back at the station, Craig Halliday apologizes to Brass for the CIA’s interference, and is interrupted by the arrival of Larry Colton, Vance’s son, who claims his father hated him. At the scene, Langston and Sara find tire treads from Suburbans, indicating the CIA has beat them to area once again. They’re even more surprised to find they have another set of eyes on them: a pair of Germans.

Back at the lab, Hodges’ computer is hacked and a document starts coming out of the printer: “Confirm Nothing, Deny Everything: My Life in the CIA” by Vance Colton. While Archie tries to figure out who hacked Hodges’ computer and sent the document, Langston scans it and finds it contains a word for word conversation between the German police and a popular leader. Langston wonders if the Germans he and Sara encountered were after the original tape of the conversation. Henry runs a tox screen on Colton but it comes back negative—even for cancer drugs, suggesting Colton wasn’t treating his illness. Langston asks Henry to run a more specific panel, giving him three drugs often used in espionage to test for, including the poison Sarin. Archie traces the signal from the hack on Hodges’ computer to the Blue Siren Motel. Brass and Sara learn Larry Colton, Vance’s son, checked into the hotel several days ago—a day before Vance’s death. They rush to the room only to find Larry Colton gunned down—his computer missing. Sara finds pictures on the bed of Larry striking Colton with a canoe paddle: a message from the Germans to prove they didn’t murder Colton. Langston surmises that Larry sent the manuscript of Colton’s book to Hodges’ computer to cast suspicion on the Germans. Henry brings the results of the tox panel to Langston: there was a fatal amount of the drug Sarin in Colton’s bloodstream. It should have been enough to kill him instantly but Langston suspects it was given to him in capsule form, which would have delayed the effects of the poison. Langston meets with Halliday, who he is certain gave Colton the poison. Langston theorizes that Colton wanted to go out a hero, posting the manuscript so the Germans would read it and come after him. Impressed with Langston, Colton offers the CSI a job, but Langston demurs.

Synopsis:

“Unshockable” is a decidedly odd mix—while the A- and B-stories don’t have to go together (and indeed, if they end up converging too often it feels too convenient), it’s hard to think of a more awkward mash up than the country music concert shenanigans and the CIA conspiracy. Neither has a lot of gravitas, but the former is pretty light on plot, while the latter feels convoluted and confusing. Neither quite works. In the A-story, the Rascal Flatts’ bassist is sabotaged by a roadie who wants to take his place for just one performance. The motive is pretty weak—why didn’t he just ask?—but the point of the Rascal Flatts’ storyline is of course to showcase the band rather than offer a tightly plotted story. On that front, it works—the band gets to perform twice in the episode, and for anyone inclined to enjoy either pop or country music, their tunes are catchy and enjoyable.

The band members don’t turn in the kind of performance Taylor Swift did when she guested in “Turn, Turn, Turn”, but then the three are playing themselves, and their storyline is nowhere near as heavy as the one Swift was given. They’re not natural actors in the way Swift is, but then, that’s not really the point of their appearance. For fans of the band, it’s fun to see them in this lighthearted storyline. There’s a little jeopardy built in for the band: when Jay gets his shock, he forgets both the band and his band mates. What’s more, he has no memory of his love of country music, professing an affinity for rap instead. At the end of the episode, his triumphant return to stage begins with a rap about his ordeal. There’s also a poke at obsessive fans in the form of Ms. RascalFlattsPsychoBitch.com, who scores Jay’s guitar out of the dumpster and erects a shrine to it. When Nick and Greg confiscate the guitar as evidence, Nick offers her autographs instead, but her face falls as she points out that she already has their autographs—and the camera pans to reveal the Flatts have signed her arm.

Stunt casting has become a common occurrence on the CSI shows these days—all three do it, with varying degrees of success. Swift’s performance was a notable triumph; the spin-offs have featured more than a few duds, from LA Laker Pau Gasol on CSI: Miami to Kim Kardashian and Nelly Furtado on CSI: NY. Because the Rascal Flatts are playing themselves, it feels almost uncharitable to be too hard on them, and in the big arena scenes when they’re performing, they certainly excel. The plot is paper thin, but the script offers a few laughs, like the moment when Jay disdains country music in favor of rap, and in the dismay of the band’s biggest fan, who shows off her guitar only to lose it to the dogged crime scene investigators.

It’s easier to forgive the A-storyline its weaknesses than the CIA plot, which simply feels like a mess. Vance Colton, a former deputy director, is dying of cancer and decides to die on his own terms by employing Sarin poison, but wants to add some mystery to his death, so he leaks his memoir in the hopes that people will assume the Germans killed him. Sure enough, the Germans do show up, but don’t kill Colton—instead, they take out his son, Larry, who angrily attacked Colton with a canoe paddle… and presumably assumes he killed his father. The Germans kill Larry and leave pictures of Larry hitting his father over the head so that the CSIs will know they didn’t kill Colton… which if they’re going for a “we’re completely innocent” stance, they blew it by taking out Colton’s son. The real supplier of the Sarin—and therefore the real killer—is actually Colton’s CIA buddy, Craig Halliday, who killed his old friend out of compassion, because he was dying of cancer. Confused yet?

Rather than intriguing, the CIA plot is almost too convoluted to follow. As in the A-case, in which the bass tech stood out like a sore thumb and was immediately identifiable as the guilty party, Halliday’s call to Catherine immediately casts suspicion on him. The CIA is fast—but Halliday is all over Colton’s death, which makes sense in the end, when we realize he’s trying to create an aura of mystery and infamy around his friend’s death rather than simply cover up the true means by which he died, but it still points to him as the most likely culprit. Throwing in the Germans and the clichéd bitter, angry son, and the story just ends up going over the top—way, way over the top, in a manner that’s forgivable in the lighter A-story but not as much in this ostensibly more serious case.

The CIA naturally has the scoop on all of the CSIs, and at the end of the episode, Halliday offers Langston a job. More interesting than Halliday’s offer is Langston’s response to it. Halliday asks if Langston has found the right fit yet and Langston doesn’t respond. Halliday demurs with a “my mistake,” but I’m not sure there wasn’t more to the exchange than it appears. Did Halliday really read Langston’s silence as a refusal, or did he see it as an indication that perhaps the time wasn’t quite right to press Langston about a career change… yet. Langston isn’t one to play coy when he has a strong opinion about something, so I wonder if perhaps it’s something he would consider.

…But hopefully down the road, and not anytime soon. Laurence Fishburne had some big shoes to fill when he took over as CSI’s leading man and though response from the fans to the character has definitely been mixed, I definitely don’t think it’s time to throw in the towel as far as Ray Langston is concerned. He’s a different lead than William Petersen’s Gil Grissom, but he’s compelling in his own right, and it’s certainly not time to write him off—or out of the show.

Petersen was anxious to get back to the theatre when he decided to say goodbye to CSI. “I hadn’t been able to do any theatre for 10 years because of the show, and I thought, if I don’t do it, I’ll never do it,” he said. “I didn’t want to become afraid to do theatre.” Since returning to the stage in Chicago, he has done two plays: Dublin Carol with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Blackbird at the Victory Gardens Theater. “It’s a three-dimensional world in the theatre,” he explained. “TV is a two-dimensional world.”

Petersen is glad to be back on the stage, but he does miss his former CSI coworkers. He is still credited as an executive producer for the series, but that doesn’t mean he’s in charge. “If I was going to do that, I’d have stayed on the show,” he said. Instead, he only visits the set from time to time. “The show has to find its own legs, without those of us that have left.”

The show added film actor Laurence Fishburne as Dr Ray Langston when Grissom left the crime lab, but Petersen was careful not to give his opinion on the new team dynamics. “I try to stay out of [it],” he said. “I try to do what Grissom would do, which is not judge it.”

Petersen didn’t mind sharing his opinion of the prevalence of forensic dramas on television. “There’s gonna come a time where we’re gonna yearn for Angela Lansbury,” he said, referring to the actress’s famous role as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote from 1984 to 1996. “And we may be there.”

Now that he has left the forensic world of CSI behind, Petersen isn’t looking to return to TV any time soon—and thanks to his steady work on the series, he doesn’t have to worry about taking jobs for the paycheck. “I never did the TV show for money, money’s not the issue,” he said. “I have more money than I ever thought I’d have, and it takes a certain amount of stress off you. I can work at the Steppenwolf and I don’t have to worry about paying my bills.”

Petersen thought the time had come to say goodbye to the show after nine seasons. “I felt there was nothing more I could do on CSI,” Petersen said. “I’ve done all I wanted to (on the show), and I wanted to get back to the theater, where I started.” He added, “I actually started to feel like I was spending more time as Grissom than as myself.”

Grissom and his team of fictional forensic scientists are credited with creating “The CSI Effect”, which critics claim generates unrealistic expectations in court. “I’ve had lots of lawyers over the years say this has made it really difficult for us,” Petersen said. “They tell me the juries think we’re going to show them a TV show. But by the same token, it has raised the consciousness of the country about forensic science.”

You can watch the interview below:

The CSI Producer discusses the big crossover, what’s coming up in the remaining sweeps episodes of CSI and the return of a memorable nemesis. Lights spoilers inside!

November sweeps has already seen the historic first three CSI show crossover, but there’s more excitement to come, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Producer Allen MacDonald promises. In addition to teasing the episode he’s at work on now–which brings back a familiar face–MacDonald discusses the return of Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), the departure of Lauren Lee Smith and Nick Stokes’ (George Eads) promotion.

CSI Files: The three-show crossover scored big in the ratings last week. How did the plans for the trilogy originate?

Allen MacDonald: It all started with [Executive Producer] Carol Mendelsohn.  It’s something she’s been wanting to do for some time now.

CSI Files: Was the crossover tricky to pull off?

MacDonald: It was just a matter of scheduling on the part of all three shows.

CSI Files: How was Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) chosen to be the character to tie it all together?

MacDonald: Laurence and David Caruso (Horatio Caine) have worked together in features and very much wanted to work together again.  After that, it just snowballed. It was quite a kick to watch Langston interact on-screen with Horatio Caine and Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise).

CSI Files: What else can we expect from sweeps?

MacDonald: A Dustin Lee Abraham episode involving the world of professional bowling and a decapitated human head bowling ball. Intrigued?  Believe me, by the time teaser is over, you’ll be hooked.  It’s gross – but in a fun way.

CSI Files: Bringing in a new leading man after eight and a half seasons is obviously a big challenge. What do you feel was the most difficult thing about the transition from Gil Grissom (William Petersen) to Langston?

MacDonald: Just simultaneously having to do two very important things at the same time: giving Grissom the emotionally satisfying send-off he deserves while simultaneously setting up Langston, and making him a unique, compelling character in his own right, instead of trying to simply recreate Grissom.

CSI Files: Langston’s father seems to loom large in his mind. Are there plans to see him at some point?

MacDonald: Not that I know of — the character is dead and there are no plans to depict him in flashbacks.

CSI Files: Sara Sidle sure is spending a lot of time away from her new husband! Are we meant to read anything into that?

MacDonald: I think it’s always been clear Grissom and Sara would have a non-traditional approach to marriage.

CSI Files: What was behind the decision to have Sara and Grissom marry?

MacDonald: We felt it was a natural conclusion to where we left them both at the end of “One to Go” in the rainforest of Costa Rica.

CSI Files: What was behind the decision to promote Nick Stokes?

MacDonald: To recognize his huge contribution to the team and his growth as an emerging leader.  Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) needed somebody to back her up and Nick seemed like the natural choice.

CSI Files: Nick and Langston seem to be developing a friendship. Will we see more of this?

MacDonald: Absolutely.  They’re getting to know and trust each other.

CSI Files: Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) is expressing a little job dissatisfaction this season with regards to the assignments he’s getting. What’s behind Greg’s disgruntled attitude?

MacDonald: It’s like he said to Sara in the premiere, he still feels he’s being treated like the geeky DNA lab tech when, in fact, he’s matured into a seasoned CSI capable of handling anything thrown his way.

CSI Files: We’ve seen a bit more of Catherine in the leadership role this season. Will this continue?

MacDonald: Yes.

CSI Files: Is there any official word on the reason why Lauren Lee Smith (Riley Adams) didn’t return for the tenth season?

MacDonald: From what I understand, it was felt Riley never quite gelled with the rest of the team because she was introduced at a pivotal point in CSI’s history – two episodes after Warrick’s (Gary Dourdan) death and seven episodes before Grissom’s departure.  As a result, the character got a bit lost in the shuffle, which is not a reflection on Lauren, who is a spectacular actress and was much-loved on the set.

CSI Files: Are there any plans for another Lab Rats episode this season?

MacDonald: Yes.  It’s going to be written by Liz Vassey (Wendy Simms) and Wallace Langham (David Hodges), who are working on it with [Executive Producer] Naren Shankar right now.

CSI Files: Are you at work on a new episode now? Can you hint at what it might be about?

MacDonald: I am.  And the only hint I can provide is that it would be the completion of a CSI storyline trilogy involving Sara Sidle and a very, very smart young girl.

Since becoming a CSI, Langston has grown as an investigator and earned a promotion within the Las Vegas crime lab. However, getting inside Langston’s head is still a work in progress for Fishburne. “I am still figuring it out,” the actor said. “Watching episodes of each season of the show from season one to four (before I started) I was able to figure out that none of them (the actors) knew who their characters were until the end of season two. It takes two years to figure this s— out because it’s structured around the crime, not the character.”

“I’ve been here for a year now, so it takes a long time and maybe I am halfway there,” Fishburne continued. While he is working to understand who Langston is, he is surrounded by actors who have had years to figure out their own characters. “The new guy’s job is always hard,” he said. “It’s always a little overwhelming.”

It might be difficult to come into a show like CSI and take over for an established character, but Fishburne was glad to have the opportunity. “I was very fortunate to have been asked to do this,” he said. “I never will be Grissom, but what I can say is that this is a very, very good television show. The storytelling and the fact they have been telling these murder mystery stories for (almost) 10 years and doing it beautifully in a smart way, I was impressed by that.” He added, “I felt really, really kind of honoured to be asked to be part of it. I was more excited than scared.”

As CSI Files previously reported, the news about Langston’s wardrobe change was taken out of context. CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler made the comment in jest, but members of the media reported the information as fact. “It is so unimportant to what the show is and where we’re going that, to me, it demeans the show,” Mendelsohn said. “Not that Nina said it, because she said it as a joke. But for it to be reported that a wardrobe makeover is the most important news coming out of CSI?”

The real news at the time was the continuing transition from former leading man William Petersen (Gil Grissom) to Fishburne. The show went about the switch a little differently—instead of coming in as the new head of the lab, Fishburne’s character started at the bottom of the lab totem pole. “It was what attracted Laurence to the role — to come in as a newbie and to learn,” Mendelsohn explained. “And he will have a very accelerated learning curve. He will blossom this year into the true CSI that Grissom saw in him when they first met. I think Fishburne was integrated so well. He’s an incredible talent. We’re so lucky to have him.”

Having an older character change careers was a realistic choice, Mendelsohn added. “There’s so many people today who aren’t just one-career people,” she said. “Many of us have had a number of careers. And I think he’s very reflective of the working population.”

Although Langston has been around for a while and earned a promotion on the job, the character is still adjusting to his new career. “The one thing that is true is that Fishburne will continue the transition from Professor Langston to CSI Langston,” Mendelsohn said. And the rest of the CSI team will continue to adjust as season ten continues. “Our team, just like a family in real life, is going through a transition. Trying to find their equilibrium,” the executive producer added. “And the theme of the season is really family. It will be about Catherine [Willows, Marg Helgenberger] and Nick [Stokes, George Eads] and Greg [Sanders, Eric Szmanda] and Langston and Sara [Sidle, Jorja Fox] finding the right balance to be Grissom’s team. The team he left behind.”

Synopsis:

Officer Danny Finn responds to the sound of gunfire in the parking lot of fast food restaurant White House Burgers and takes down an armed suspect–who turns out to be a fellow officer named Scott Johnson. Witnesses at the scene cry out that the shooting was racially motivated, and say that the final shot was fired when Johnson was already down on the ground. Doc Robbins examines the three bullet wounds in Johnson’s body noting that the fatal shot went through his heart–but that he can’t tell if Johnson was upright or prone when the shot was fired. Finn defends his actions, but his partner Donna Grayson didn’t see the final shot and the 911 operator plays back a recording of Grayson’s call in during the shooting–in which Finn can clearly be heard saying, “I’m taking him down, that black son of a bitch.” Brass angrily interrogates Finn, noting that Johnson was his trainee five years ago–and filed complaints against him. Finn insists he didn’t recognize the man–and that he didn’t know who Johnson was when he fired his gun.

Sara joins detective Carlos Moreno at a local high school where a teen boy is dead. One of his fingers is gone, leading Moreno to suspect he was a snitch. Sara finds nine-millimeter casings at the scene, and blood drops leading away from the body, which she believes belong to his killer. Nick and Langston go over Johnson’s phone records and see he received several calls from someone named Anthony right before he was shot. Nick calls the number and the phone Sara recovered from the dead teen rings–Anthony is her John Doe. The tox screen on him comes back negative, indicating he wasn’t doing drugs, and his mother insists he wasn’t involved with any gangs. Using a gang database, Moreno and Sara are able to pinpoint the gang that killed Anthony: the D-Street Killers. When the casing from the bullet that killed Johnson is found in the vicinity of Finn’s police car’s location, the CSIs realize he did indeed fire the final shot from near the car. They recover another casing from where Johnson was shot, and recover traces of grape jelly and a print from it, but get no hits in AFIS. The print proves to be a match to a little boy from the restaurant, who found the casing after the shooting and tossed it away. Brass tells Finn he’s cleared, but tells the hot-under-the-collar cop he won’t be cleared for duty until he talks to a department shrink.

Langston brings Johnson’s father to the station, where they cross paths with Finn–who gets in his car and fires his gun into his mouth. Sara and Moreno find the D-Street Killer who murdered Anthony, with a bullet in his butt courtesy of Johnson. The D-Street Killer opened fire on Scott and Anthony at the White House Burger. When Finn took Scott down, Anthony fled–and the D-Street Killer caught and killed him for talking to the cop. In the morgue, Langston notices bruises on Finn’s legs and gets the team to return to the fast food restaurant where the shooting went down. He realizes that Finn’s vision was impaired, confirming the cop’s claim that he didn’t recognize Scott Johnson when he shot him. “So where’s the bad guy in all of this?” Nick asks. No one is able to answer.

Analysis:

Racial tensions simmer in the latest CSI outing, which doesn’t break any new ground but avoids going over the top into out and out melodrama. The old school cop whose racism is so deeply ingrained that it doesn’t even register consciously with him, the downtrodden folks who recognize racially-charged incidents when they see them but don’t have a lot of faith in getting it right, the good kid who avoids gangs and drugs and ends up paying with his life for talking to an undercover cop–these are all elements we’ve seen before in other stories, but the episode handles them deftly. Jack Blessing as Danny Finn and Adina Porter as Denise Devine, a worker at the fast food restaurant and the mother of the boy who picks up the bullet casing, are particular standouts. Blessing gives Finn conviction while Porter (whom many might recognize as Tara’s mother Lettie Mae on True Blood) imbues her character with a world-weariness that isn’t so complete that it keeps her from pointing out a wrong where she sees it.

Though the phrase “coup de grace” is uttered a bit too often, much of the episode hinges on whether Danny Finn fired the fatal shot at Scott Johnson from his car or standing over him. Was it, as Danny claims, a case of an officer responding to hearing gunfire and acting as he believed best, or did he decide to finish off a suspect he referred to as a “black son of a bitch” because his prejudice took over? Langston argues that it wasn’t racism that made him fire in the first place–that the initial decision to fire was made too quickly, in less than a third of a second. Indeed, it’s something of an impossible situation–a cop comes across a man firing at someone. Who is the man? Why is he firing? If he’s not in uniform or flashing a badge, most people wouldn’t make the assumption that he’s a cop. Johnson certainly wouldn’t have time to identify himself as a cop to Finn, if he even noticed the man.

At the end of the episode, Nick asks, “So where’s the bad guy in all this?” and indeed, it is a question without an answer. Finn’s racist attitudes are nauseating, but it becomes clear throughout the episode that he wasn’t gunning for Johnson specifically–and though he may not have liked the man, he wouldn’t have shot at him if he’d realized who he was. Finn saw a man firing a weapon and made the assumption most of us would: that that man was dangerous. Johnson certainly wasn’t doing anything wrong–he was firing at a gang member. The one genuine bad guy–the gang member–is caught at the end of the episode, thanks to a bullet Johnson hit him with. The shooting was a no win situation for all involved, a collusion of bad timing and bad luck rather than actual poor decisions being made.

Though the episode is incredibly well written and tells a great story, it typifies the problem CSI has been having lately–difficulty connecting with the audience. With so many forensics shows on television, ultimately what draws viewers to one show over the another is the characters. The Mentalist was a breakout hit last year because of the lead character’s appeal. NCIS is drawing in big numbers in its seventh season because viewers have really taken to the characters on that show. CSI had the same appeal in its early seasons–quirky Grissom, brash and ballsy Catherine, simmering Warrick, easy-going Nick–the characters on the show were a big part of the reason the show became such a hit. People wanted to see crimes solved with science–and they wanted to see these people solve crimes with science. Though science might be the star, the ratings decline in the wake of William Petersen’s departure proves that it’s not the only star. The characters are important, too.

Petersen might be gone, but Catherine, Nick, Greg, Brass, Doc Robbins, the lab rats and now Sara are still around… albeit in the background. The problem isn’t so much that Laurence Fishburne’s Langston is so prominent in the foreground–it’s that it feels like there’s not that much going on with the other characters. Brass gets a few nice scenes in the episode, but they’re not that far outside the norm, save for his outburst that he put his credibility on the line for Finn. This is a case of one cop shooting another–how is affecting Brass, given that he went through something similar in “A Bullet Runs Through It”. Paul Guilfoyle does a great job with the material he’s given, but it feels like there should be more of it, like we should see this case having more of an impact on him. And what about the rest of the department? We get to see reaction from the community, but not much of one from the characters who really count to the audience: the team.

Enrique Murciano of the late Without a Trace shows up as a detective, but he’s not given much to work with either, which seems a waste given that he was a regular on another CBS crime drama. Even Langston doesn’t get that much to do here, besides reference the study on racism, and of course, provide the final realization that Finn’s vision was impaired. He’s also the last person Finn sees before he shoots himself, something that he brings up to Nick in the lab. It’s a comment that indicates that Langston is still adjusting to his new job–that death, particularly violent death, isn’t something that he’s become used to as part of the job yet.

Hall joined CSI in the fifth episode of the first season. “The first coroner they had couldn’t pronounce the ten-syllable medical words, and I took three years of Latin in high school,” the actor explained. “They hired me for one show, and William Petersen [Gil Grissom] goes, ‘He’d be a good coroner.’ And so after all these years of acting and knocking my head against the wall, I suddenly had a steady job.” Hall did 17 episodes during the first season and became a series regular at the start of season two. “I’ve been a regular on the show for nine years now,” he said.

The actor’s job on CSI gives him some free time to pursue other things that are important to him. “They’ll sometimes stack my scenes where sometimes it’s a nine [or] ten day shooting schedule, but I’ll get to do five or six scenes on one day at the beginning and three scenes on the last day of the shoot,” Hall explained. That leaves him plenty of time in the middle to do disability work. The actor recently visited Grand Rapids, Michigan for a fundraiser called “Invest in Ability”. Hall told some stories about people who invested in him. “In Hollywood, it’s pretty tough to get hired if you have a disability,” he explained.

Hall has two artificial legs, one that ends above the knee and one that ends below the knee. More than 30 years ago, he was involved in a car accident that left him burned over 60 percent of his body. He spent six months in intensive care. “I love nurses if you’re out there,” he said. “A lot of people took care of me, but I apparently did something good on my own.”

“The thing that changed my life, apart from the accident,” Hall said, was when “one of my well-meaning friends said to me, ‘Well, a guy with two artificial legs can’t be an actor.’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah?’ I don’t like being told that I can’t do something.”

He joined a classical theatre company and worked on his balance and walking. Then he studied acting for 10 years with Gordon Hunt (actress Helen Hunt’s father). “Gordon didn’t care whether you were black, white, old, young, disabled—he only cared that you did the work each week in the class,” Hall explained. “I went from being an okay actor to being a competent actor thanks to Gordon.”

“I think I did every TV show in the 80s and 90s, always as the angry disabled guy,” Hall continued. “That’s what I love about CSI. As strange as Dr Robbins may be, they never talk about my disability. My job is to help them solve the crime each week.”

Leading man Petersen left the show last season and was replaced by Laurence Fishburne (Dr Ray Langston). “I worked with Laurence on a movie years ago,” Hall said. “He’s different than Billy, but he has his own thing, and I think people are starting to accept him as the star of the show.”

Petersen is happy to be back in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. “He was ready to leave the show, and he’s doing a lot of theatre,” Hall explained. The rest of the cast is still glad to work on the series. “I want the show to go on as long as possible, and Laurence is a wonderful actor,” Hall said. “Every time I have a scene with him, I’m just happy.”

Hall is also happy that the original CSI does a bit better than its two spinoffs. He explained that both series have done well and that David Caruso (Horatio Caine, CSI: Miami) and Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor, CSI: New York) have their own fans. “We just kind of keep our nose into our own business,” Hall said. “We’re happy that we’re always rated a little bit higher than they are, and after ten years we’re still in the top five, so we’re very blessed, very fortunate.”

The original video interview can be viewed below:

When Zuiker got the idea for Level 26, which combines a traditional novel with the visual power of short video “cyber bridges”, he wanted to draw in fans familiar with his other work. “I wanted to build a short bridge from CSI to Level 26,” he explained. “I didn’t want my first ‘digi-novel’ to be a romance book and I have so much information from research I’ve done for CSI that it makes perfect sense that I would do a serial killer-type novel.”

Zuiker added that “it feels pretty good with no one telling me what to do. There are no cooks in the kitchen. There’s no network to answer to. I wanted to have something that was unadulterated that I could really run with. Kind of like Joss Whedon’s Dr Horrible.” But would he consider doing a crossover between his new project and the one that made him famous? “I’ve been thinking about it,” he revealed. “It would be a lot of fun to have Sqweegel on one of the CSIs. It would certainly work. We’ve had some talks about movies, but right now I’m just focused on getting the book off the ground. The next book launches in 2010, so we’re focused on building a strong house.”

Level 26 is a very graphic, violent novel. Zuiker said that was done on purpose. “At the time, I didn’t want readers to pick up the book and say, ‘I can get this on television,’” he explained. “That was my biggest fear. So it’s like an NC-17 CSI episode. The traditional book reader might be feeling that this is a little too dark, and I can sympathize with that. But my thoughts were I’m going to learn as I go forward. Book two will be very much a psychological thriller with less shock value.”

In CSI news, Zuiker said they are hoping for a visit from former leading man Petersen. Now that his onscreen wife Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) is back indefinitely, the question remains whether Grissom will reappear in the Las Vegas Crime Lab any time soon. “We’re trying to get Billy back,” Zuiker said. “It’s really up in the air right now. He’s sorely missed and I’d love to have him back. Nothing would please me more to get Billy back.”