The TV Zone

OK, lotsa promos on Kat McPhee's big cameo role on tonight's "CSI:NY." Here's what I believe is a pretty full look at the budding star...

Oh goody, I have for you right now First Looks at "Gossip Girl" and "CSI: NY."

I haven't even seen these yet, but I'm sure they're grand. "GG," as you know, is back Monday. And this "CSI" clip? I gotta believe this is the mucho-hypo'd episode with Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Pete Wentz (Or is it Pete Simpson-Wentz, or Simpson Pete-Wentz...I've been deeply confused over this celeb match made in heaven...)

Let's see - they play Bonnie and Clyde, or something that...

The rich get richer: That Taylor Swift cameo on "CSI" last night (BORRRRRing!) boosted the show's already stratospheric viewership by 3 million.

Needless to say, it killed in the time period.

21 million viewers.

Taylor just made "CSI" the second-most-watched show of the week. If the new album tanks (Ha! kidding!) and if this singing business gets kind of old, then I have a feeling "CSI" will make a little extra room for her. Too bad her character died last night... I believe "Idol" won the night, BTW, edging out "CSI" by dozens of viewers...

Herewith the math:

"CSI" was "...first in households (12.8/20), viewers (20.80m), adults 25-54 (7.0/16) and adults 18-49 (5.3/13). Compared to last week, CSI was up +15% in households (from 11.1/17), +17% in adults 25-54 (from 6.0/14), +23% in adults 18-49 (from 4.3/11) and added +3.08m viewers (from 17.72m, +17%). This is CSI's best delivery in viewers since Jan. 15, 2009 (Grissom's farewell) and best deliveries in adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 since Jan. 29, 2009."

Taylor Swift is on "CSI" next week and...here's a first look...

As "CSI:Miami" fans know, Diddy stars in this Monday's episode as a defense attorney who knocks heads with Horatio. CBS posted the "first look" clip last night, and here you go ... It's reasonably rare to see him on-screen - other than the starring role in "A Raisin in the Sun," this may be his only other TV outing (yes, a handful of movie roles, but TV - rare).

As you know all too well, Gil Grissom leaves tonight - Gil, of course, being William Petersen, who will be back on the show occasionally, and retains his exec producer creds. Below, watch this nice clip of Bill, as he discusses the role, and a bunch of other stuff.

How do I feel about the Grissom departure? So glad you asked: I honestly can't imagine this show without him. I remember years ago when Les Moonves got him to star in this Anthony Zuiker idea, and at the time it was seen as a mini-coup, given Petersen's emerging big-screen character actor career ("Contender"..."To Live and Die in LA"..."Mulholland Falls.") Petersen got on board as a producer, too - which also, if memory serves, seemed kind of unique insofar as he hardly had a sterling TV resume to that point. But the guy plunged right in, and shaped this show to his own specifications.

Though I don't know Petersen - and by all accounts, he's a hard guy to get to know - I suspect his character is something of a mirror: Perfectionist, prickly, removed and very, very private. I'm pretty certain he doesn't like the press and has not worked at building his press clips or publicity. But whatever you think of "CSI" - and I'm occasionally ambivalent, given the fact that it sometimes wallows in its tawdry subject matter - it's beautifully produced, acted, and conceived. Much, much credit due to Petersen.

This came across my in-box not long ago and I share with you now - a nice photo album of Gil Grissom through the years, all the way back to the early days when his idea of a great night out was studying high-rez pictures of cocystus mexicanus hortideorum McCook (that's the American honey ant, which has a strange and inscrutable attraction to corpses found near beehives...)

What a fun guy!

As you are well aware, Gil/Billy Petersen's last day at "CSI" is January 15. I also understand he's on next week's cover of TV Guide (of course), where we'll get quotes like this: "I was an emotional wreck on Billy's last day," Marg Helgenberger told the mag. "Actually the last two weeks leading up to his departure, it was hard for me to keep it together.

Yeah, he will be missed, very much so.

One of the biggest departures in recent TV history takes place Jan. 15:Gil Grissom is leaving "CSI."

Few details on this, other than this tantalizing line in a recent CBS release: "Grissom makes the stunning announcement that he is leaving the CSI team, on CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, Thursday, Jan. 15 (9:00-10:01 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network." One of CBS's hard-working public relations pros did indeed confirm to me that this will be Billy's last day.

[BTW, my colleague at the Trib, the incomparable Mo Ryan, tells me that in fact Grissom tells the staff in NEXT WEEK'S episode that he's leaving. That of course is the one with Fishburne.]

So there you have it. He's gone on the 15th. Laurence Fishburne joins the CSI next week...

Idle question: I wonder how he and Lady Heather will get along?

That's the big day. Here's the program line note for that night's episode, entitled "19 Down…"

"When a new murder leads to a connection with an infamous serial killer, Grissom secretly joins the class of well-known criminal pathologist Dr. Raymond Langston (Fishburne), to gain access to the killer and get a crack in the case..."

Well, actually: "CSI" has a great first night. Last night's new season launch - the one about the hunt for Warwick's killer - was seen by 23 million viewers, making it the most viewed show of the new season on poor maligned broadcast TV.

Twenty-three million: That's still a very big number, even these days.

Meanwhile..."Life on Mars," the terrific new ABC series with Harvey Keitel and Jason O'Mara, was seen by just under 12 million, and considering the tough competition, that's pretty good, too. "Eleventh Hour" - which I believed switched the second episode of the season with the pilot, perhaps because the original pilot was so very bad - was seen by just a hair fewer viewers than "Life," which isn't so hot considering that "CSI" was its lead-in. (Of course, "Life" had "Grey's Anatomy" for a lead-in, so...)

As promised, here are some outtakes from the teleconference with Laurence Fishburne, just ended.

The headline: A lot of details still need to be worked out. When asked about his character - someone with a mysterious past, presumably with a DNA that suggests he's prone, or at least amendable, to murderous and violent behavior - Fishburne et al said details remain sketchy. (Showrunners on the call, Carol Mendelsohn and Naren Shankar disputed that the character actually has the DNA of a serial killer, or as Shanker said, "there's no such thing...")

Per Fishburne, "I have [no] knowledge of such a biological profile nor would I be at liberty to discuss it if there were such a biological profile...I don't know. I'm really excited I'm going to be joining this team. We have a lot of stuff to work out like 'what's the character's name?' We've only had an opportunity to sit down face to face - one time. In the next couple weeks we're going to get going and find out what those answers are. All of this is discovery for everyone involved."

He starts shooting in September and first Fishburne episode is Dec. 11.

He was asked, are you a "CSI" fan? "I am now. To be perfectly frank, when we met here in New York I felt a little stupid an embarrassed that I hadn't watched the show prior to meeting them, but the episodes they sent me were really engaging, and really wonderful and dark and moody, like the work I've been involved in. I was like oooooh, wow...this'll work."

The on-set code name for his character, by the way, is "the professor...he's a fresh set of eyes," per Fishburne.

Someone pressed Carol for more details about the character. Will he run the team? "We're in the process of creating the character, but the initial first blush, we thought that it was so interesting to have our new CSI come in as a CSI 1...someone knowledgeable in their own right [but] someone who hasn't been to a lot of crime scenes. He'll feel very comfortable at home in the bowels of the corner office."

Fishburne: "I'm gonna enter into this with the most positive attitude I can. I'm going to work with people who have made great television for nine years...All I can say is, I'm excited and ready to play..."

(Photo by George Holz for Broadwayworld.com; Fishburne just wrapped his one-man "Thurgood" at the Booth.)

Watch tonight's "CSI" and you too will understand why Jorja Fox - Sara Sidle - quit.

Murders, suicide, a drag and dump (whatever that is), woman with knife in back, pre-pubescent homicidal insanity...all within 44 minutes. You'd quit too. One wonders what kind of toll this takes on an intelligent sensitive actress like Fox - year after year of it. She told "EW" that she wanted to start a family, but starting families requires a certain frame of mind, and "optimism" has to be a basic minimum requirement – optimism about life, your life, and the life of your unborn children. How could Fox be optimistic in a role that almost certainly bled into her off-screen psyche? (And how could it not?) "I spent almost my entire life with ghosts," she tells Grissom in her goodbye-and-good-luck note. Nice line, and given this role, accurate. Time to move on and more credit to Fox for having the courage to forsake a very good paycheck for doing so.

As "CSI's" go, tonight is merely average - which isn't to say it's bad, just merely average by “CSI” standards which would be high by anyone else’s. The B, C and D stories almost don't matter here: The inevitability of her departure is etched into every scene and line, so the end comes as no surprise whatsoever (and of course everyone's known it's been coming for months anyway so no surprise was expected.) Even the episode title tips off the ending: “Goodbye and Good Luck.” It’s dry with just a touch of hope. And of course Sara lives. Of course.

There’s a flashback case here - fans will remember it well from last season, in the episode where the girl genius, Hannah West - Juliette Goglia of "Joan of Arcadia" - lies to save her brother, Marlon (Douglas Smith). The deranged duo is back, and poor little smart girl Hannah is up to her old tricks, plus she crawls right back into Sara’s head and messes it all up again. There's no reason to go into any more detail, but the case is probably an appropriate one to end with because it serves to not only remind Sidle of her many ghosts but also of the fact that you can't really bury them - they just keep coming back to haunt you. I've got to say, this departure is hardly suffused with optimism or the aforementioned hope: Sidle goes off into the figurative sunset with the harsh neon glow of the Vegas strip reflecting off her achingly sober face. Will Sara find happiness? Will Jorja? One certainly hopes they both do.