CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Based on that promo photo, this is going to be a gut wrenching season opener and perhaps what sets the stage for Gil's departure. I hate to see old characters go but the addition of Fishburn is greatly anticipated. I truely hope one of Gil's last cases is solving the shooting and putting the undersheriff away.

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Man, those photos actually got to me. Repeat to self: "it is just a tv show. it is just a tv show."

The season opener is going to be tough to watch.

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

[lecherous]She can investigate me any time she wants.[/lecherous]

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Looks like Sarah has a new Hairdo as well.

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

We are counting the minutes, the previews look awesome!

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

I thought it was a fitting way to send off Warrick, I had built up the opening scene with Grissom too much in my head so it was sort of anti-climatic but gripping all the same.
Jorga Fox's return was handled well, "I caught the first flight out", overall very well done, very moving.

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

That was a well done premiere. Though I was kinda surprised that they solved it so fast. But I can see that in the past they don't let these things hang. I would have thought Under Sheriff McKeen would have gotten away with it a little longer, until Grissom leaves anyway. It was a nice way to resolution.

I guess seeing Jorja Fox's name as a Special Guest Star meant that it was a one time deal or is she coming back for a few more shows. Perhaps riding off with Grissom?

I thought there was an unsaid connection between Warrick and Catherine. I know in season's past, they eluded to some tension and attraction that went no where, and her surprise to learn Warrick had gotten married. So when Catherine said she had the keys to his place, and that she had them because she went to get him clothes might have more meaning.

I knew Nick wouldn't kill him. I liked how very understated his arc went being his best friend and wanting to find McKeen.

Eckley was nice to Grissom in this episode, for good reason.

A few things seem confusing to me, Liz Vassey is credited as a special guest star like Jorja, I guess she's not part of the lab rats anymore? No one for Hodges to get geeky with?

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 premiere 10/9/08 (mild early season spoil

Nelson Au wrote (post #12):


You thought right.


There is a number of examples. Unfortunately, I can remember only two off the top of my head.

In episode #26, "Bully for You", the investigation of the murder of a student in a high-school boys' bathroom occasions the reminiscence of some of the characters' own high-school experiences. Brown lets on that he was a nerd who wore glasses and whose classmates made fun of his eyes, at which Catherine expresses surprise, since "your eyes are your best feature". He was also shy with the girls and states how she must've been the object of competition from all her male classmates. The conversation ends something like:

Warrick: "You were the girl I ran away from."
Catherine: "Yeah, until you caught me."

(quote found at Elyse's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Site)

In "Down the Drain" (episode #94), the two of them crawl out of the Las Vegas storm-drain system and Brown catches her when she slips. The two exchange what used to be called "bedroom eyes" until one of the sewer workers breaks up the "reverie".

There are several other prominent examples, but [sigh] the rest I have in a file on a hard drive that's in storage right now.


Yeah, I almost thought she was about to "spill the beans" about some much more serious involvement between the two.


P.S.: I must say Marg Helgenberger still looks great! There're phonies and then there's real beauty (that lasts)!!!

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Between seasons I was thinking along the same lines - that the investigation would take awhile and that solving it would be the last thing Grissom did before he left. Even as the episode was airing, and it became clear that they were moving much faster than that, I thought they might stretch the story to two or three episodes before they proved their case. (I especially thought that Eckley's concern about the judge meant that they were going to have work a bit more outside the system and put their jobs in jeopardy a bit more before they solved it.)

Of course, if the undersheriff is still alive, the story isn't completely over.


I seem to recall reading that she was coming back for a multi-episode arc, another thing the led me to think the Warrick investigation might last longer. Certainly she is in the next episode, because she is in the promo.


I wondered about that, too. There was always sexual tension between the two characters, which was played just as carefully as that between Grissom and Sara. (There was a shot in one episode where Warrick catches Catherine when she stumbles, and they end-up in a semi-embrace. The producers spent a lot of time calibrating exactly how long to hold that shot and how the actors should respond.) It just got less play because both Catherine and Warrick were too smart to get involved in an office romance, and the audience knew it, so they kept it to a light flirtation, recognizing the obvious, but never pushing it too far.

Grissom, on the other hand, completely missed the obvious and Sara's flirting was always subconcious. When she tried to force the issue from time to time, she didn't flirt, she blurted things out, which always surprised Grissom. A very different dynamic there, until a series of event led Grissom to re-evaluate his life, the risks and the rewards of the relationship, and he decided to take the chance. It helped that he and Sara were both so socially awkward that they rarely socialized with the others except right after work and had few other friends.)

Still, I'd quibble about the "unsaid" part. When Catherine was acting all strange around Warrick after he got married, she said something like, "One of the things that makes a fantasy so powerful is the idea that someday it might come true. And we're disappointed when that possiblity goes away." It does make you wonder if after Warrick's divorce they didn't give it a try - although their risks of getting caught were a lot higher since neither of them was as closed-off as Girssom and Sara, and they both had more of a non-work life that could lead to people finding out.

Oh - tiny nitpick: "Ellude" means to escape or evade ("he elluded his pursurers".) "Allude" means to refer to, often obliquely. Easy to mix them up - or simply to type an "e" when you mean to type an "a".


As Nicholas pointed out, far from leaving, Liz Vassey is moving up to series regular this year.


The complexities of Hollywood contracts and credits probably explain the difference here. In fact, Liz Vassey, David Berman and Jorja Fox were all listed as "special guest stars". Fox for the obvious reasons, Berman and Vassey probably because they are new regulars.

Given the last-minute nature of the real-life events that led to Dourdan's departure, it is possible that all or most of this episode was shot as part of last year's production run - while he was still under contract - which would explain why he didn't get a "special guest star" credit. (Well, that and the fact that they wanted to maintain the suspense about Warrick's fate for the 12 people who didn't already know that Dourdan had left the show. ) The "special guest star" credit probably covers Vassey and Berman being paid their higher "regular" salary for this episode for purposes of residuals, instead of a standard guest star rate.

Regards,

Joe

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

I forgot to mention Dourdan. I wondered too if he came back to film that one death scene or if it was filmed last year. It was especially unfortunate for Warrick that he has to lay there dying and look up to see his killer and Grissom and he couldn't tell him.

That was a frustrating scene! Here the killer doesn't want to help Grissom, but does to keep up appearances and Warrick can't do anything about it.

Thanks for correcting my spelling of allude, Joseph. That's what I meant.
Thanks for the clarification of the guest stars and who is coming back. I was avoiding the earlier potential spoiler posts. I re-watched the title credits just now and I didn't know that Gary Dourdan is still in the credits and his image is still there as they show the team walking up to the yellow tape.

Rex, those were the particular scenes I was alluding to.

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Yeah, Dourdan had his regular individual credit in the main titles (which I think were the credits from last season, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) Re the "death" scene. As shot that scene could have gone either way. The could as easily have been Warrick slipping into unconciousness. If Dourdan had stayed with the show they could have had an ambulance roll up and take him to the hospital.


Actually it was lucky for both of them the he didn't, since the undersheriff would have immediately shot both of them, and done the job right this time.

I strongly suspect that the Warrick's son arc was something that would have been introduced last year if not for the strike, and that Dourdan's psych eval was shot for it. What was interesting was that they didn't just drop it. After all, nobody, including the characters, knew anything about this idea.

The producers probably could have found another way of introducing the particular footage talking about Grissom as Warrick's father figure without getting into the custody issue. I suspect that this will figure into Grissom's departure, as will Sara's return.

Warrick's ex is a doctor. For him to even have a chance of getting custody, she's got to have some serious issues in her life. I'm talking abusive boyfriends or drugs, because otherwise he wouldn't even get into court. If she's that bad, then even an outsider like Grissom might have a shot, especially if he can show that he's stable, out of the violent world of crime and happily married. Given the history of both characters with Warrick, it would be an interesting irony of Grissom and Sara ended up raising his son.

I'm looking forward to this season, and to the "new" CSI. This could be the kind of change that allows the series to keep going without getting stale, where the format, rather than the individual characters, caries the series, something like Law & Order which has gone through several total cast turn-overs (although always with signficant periods old and new characters overlapping) since it started.

Regards,

Joe

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Nicholas Martin wrote (post #17):


Does it take weight off of her hips and thighs as well? 'Cause she seems to have great ones.


Me no have HD tv. Me have only stone-age analog 27" tv. Actually, me watched this episode on computer-screen thingy. Oy!

re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

I just got a chance to watch the episode last night and I was impressed. I wish it had taken a little longer to solve the case so it would have felt bigger. However, that could have been too similar to the Miniature Killer case (the crime happens, they think the one guy did it, they stop him, they investigate a little more, find out another person is involved and then catch that person too) so maybe it's better that they ended the story right out of the gate.

I loved Grissom's eulogy at the end. Petersen really brought his A game for that scene.

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

With Laurence Fishburn coming in this season, my guess is they want to focus the story arc on his new character and not this tragedy of losing Warrick. They want to downplay it and focus maybe more on the after-affects of his death, and how it affects the team.
If they focus too much on Grissom and try to make a story arc for this season on Worrick's death, people might think this is the end of the series.
Better to introduce Fishburn early in the season and have Peterson slip out, maybe not quietly, but not be the big highlight, showing the crimes just continue and the team moves on.
I, too would have preferred a long story arc on this subject but will understand if they do not, or at least have Fishburn's new character complete it.

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

In the promos, you can hear Gil say, "Oh, my God!" with more emotion and anguish in his voice than we've ever heard from him on the show. But I don't recall that line in the show itself. I have it DVR'd so I can check it again when I'm home, but can anyone confirm that it was there? It was a really great reading and gave me a chill when I first heard it.

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

No, it wasn't there as far as I know. Neither was the line "stay with me Warrick".

I could have missed it though.

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

I actually started watching CSI from the beginning a few weeks before the season premiere, in anticipation of some of the changes I knew were coming this season. "Too Tough to Die" is one of several episodes I was hoping would get some kind of call-back before the show ends, especially since Sara is back for a "visit". (Another, which I'm sure won't happen, is "Organ Grinder", in which Marcia Cross played a gold-digging wife who gets away with murder.)

I like it when a show remains aware of its own history, as when "Dutch Boy" stuck the knife into Warrick over Holly Gribbs during his interrogation last season. I'd also love to see Anna and Lori (who got caught half-naked with a head in the trunk of their stolen car in season 1's "Evaluation Day" and returned 5 years later as patrons of a dead psychic in "Spellbound") come back at least one more time. Am I right in remembering that Melinda Clarke is scheduled to return as Lady Heather? Grissom could hardly leave Las Vegas without seeing her one more time...

Regards,

Joe

Re: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season 9 (mild early season spoilers)

Grissom pushing the dead gambling addicts knees back together after the postmortem swab was a subtly creepy touch.

Hey! Grissom's got something on a swab, wonder. . uh, . . . oh.