See Also: 'Dead Doll' Episode Guide

Next month, fans will find out if Gil Grissom (William Petersen) will be able to save Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox).

The seventh season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ended with Sara's life hanging in the balance. While she was trapped beneath a car somewhere in the desert as rain poured down, the rest of the team had only a miniature of the scene for guidance--and the knowledge that Sara would die if they did not find her in time. The cliffhanger ending will be resolved in the eighth season premiere, "Dead Doll".

The people involved with the show are keeping tight-lipped about whether Sara will live or die. Fox's contract was up for re-negotiation at the end of season seven, and there is still no word on whether or not she'll be sticking around. The first step toward knowing whether Fox will remain on the show is finding out Sara's fate. Executive producer Naren Shankar isn't giving any clues. "Let's just say fans will be very satisfied with how it turns out," he said. "No loose ends will be left dangling at the end of the first episode." The TV Guide reported that there would be a new character on the show starting in episode three, "Go to Hell". Executive producer Carol Mendelsohn said that this woman "may be a CSI or a lab tech," but she would not reveal anything about Sara or whether this character is meant to take her place.

Filming for the premiere involved building a replica of the miniature scene in the show's soundstage. The set includes a car on hydraulics and 28,000 gallons of water. During filming, Shankar admitted that he was nervous about Fox's safety. Since Sara was pinned beneath the car, shooting the scenes required the actress to be surrounded by water. "Jorja was a total trouper and everything was designed for 100 percent safety," he explained, "but when you're watching, you get a little knot in your stomach." Even though the other actors were not involved in those scenes, they still showed up at the soundstage to watch the filming. "The actors were as impressed as anybody by what we built," Shankar said. "They came back from their time off and went, 'Holy crap!' Everybody was pretty knocked out by this." Fans will see the resolution to this cliffhanger on September 27, when season eight of CSI premieres.

This article is from the Fall Sneak Peek Special Issue of TV Guide. Thanks to Al Forno for sharing this news.

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