SWING TIME
Big changes on CSI – new teams! sexy romance! – are reshaping TV’s hottest show and we’re on the case
TV Guide
February 27, 2005
By Craig Tomashoff
Sure, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a show loaded with cold corpses. But examine it more closely and the evidence is clear: Two hot bodies are changing the rules on the dark detective drama.
The shift began innocently enough, with studly Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) and sultry Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) wading through a Las Vegas drainpipe to look for clues to a crime earlier this season. Then Catherine stumbled and fell into Warrick’s waiting arms. For a fleeting, flirting moment, they seemed on the verge of something steamy in the sewer – until a passerby interrupted.
“I felt that we had entered the zone of tenderness and exhilaration,” recalls Helgenberger. Adds Dourdan, grinning: “It’s always fun to work with a fine-ass costar.”
Apparently, it’s also fun to put some heat into a hit show that’s usually more about forensics than foreplay. Promises executive producer Carol Mendelsohn, “Before this show is over, some CSI will have sex.”
Five seasons into the series, the producers and actors agree that it’s time to let people in on the characters’ personal lives. “We’ve come to the understanding that this show is about this group of people and how they solve cases, but also how they interact,” says Dourdan, stretching out his 6-foot-2 frame on a bed in the Los Angeles-area room where the show is shooting. “It’s more fun to do that than pull hair follicles and process them. After five years, you want that.”
The Catherine-Warrick flirtation is adding some spice that the actors say will breathe more life into a series featuring so much death. Since it debuted in the fall of 2000, ‘CSI’ has been the godfather of police procedural shows. Consistently pulling in nearly 26 million viewers, it has inspired both spin-offs and imitators. And viewers have been more likely to see grumpy, larva-loving boss Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his investigating crew poring over clues than pouring out their personal problems.
But a subtle shift is afoot, and Catherine is leading the way. “Catherine needs to explore her sexuality and have some intimacy in her life,” says Helgenberger, lounging in her trailer during a break in filming. “Carol has told me she can’t see Catherine kissing just anyone. It has to be the right guy.”
Warrick may be the lucky fella. “There’s a lot of tension between the characters, sexual and otherwise,” Dourdan says. “Warrick has had ideas about her since their early days on the team. He’s not blind, you know.”
Before the writers can bring some characters together though, they wanted to shake things up on a bigger scale. That’s why they decided to shock both the cast and viewers earlier this season by splitting up the CSI team. Grissom still leads the graveyard shift, made up of eager but troubled Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), freshman-in-the-field Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) and demoted investigator Sofia Curtis (Louise Lombard). Meanwhile, new boss Catherine oversees Warrick and Nick Stokes (George Eads) on the swing shift.
Did the changes have to be so drastic? Mendelsohn says yes. “There was a real somberness to our fourth season,” she explains. “We wanted to create a situation where the characters are not on top of each other every day. It’s about fresh eyes for everyone.”
As eager as the cast was for something new, breaking up the team was not a hit, in part because the producers brought the idea to the actors not long after Fox and Eads had reportedly been dropped from the cast when they tried to renegotiate their contracts.
Eventually, producers rehired both actors, but the experience left the stars feeling a little on edge – especially when they heard that new characters, like Lombard’s Curtis and slimy boss Conrad Ecklie (Marc Vann), were being brought in. “The message to us was, ‘You’re replaceable,’” Helgenberger says.
Still, once the cast started working on the new episodes, they came around. “One of the actors said later,’You were right! I’ve never enjoyed what I’m playing so much!” Mendelsohn recalls. “It goes with our concept for this season. We always hear die-hard fans saying the show isn’t as good as the first season, so we said, ‘Let’s go back to Season 1 and reintroduce the characters.’”
As a result, look for more scenes like the emotionally wrenching exchange that took place recently in Sara’s apartment, in which she revealed to Grissom that her mother had killed her father. In coming episodes, Catherine’s mother will also make an appearance – and question her daughter’s parenting skills.
One thing that won’t be replayed, however, is a makeout scene between Catherine and Nick that was filmed for the series pilot. Both the producers and actors figured it was too much too soon, and the scene was cut. (It will be included in a reissued DVD of the first season, available later this year). “It didn’t fit in at the time,” Eads says. “I don’t see something like that happening again.” And now that Catherine is his shift leader, there’s not a chance Nick will make a move. “The character I play is old-fashioned to the extent that he would never do anything with a boss,” Eads says. “There’s some flirtiness there maybe, but that’s it.”
Nicke isn’t Catherine’s first choice, anyway. As it turns out, Dourdan and Helgenberger had a thing going long before the storm drain. “In the first season, we talked about the chemistry between Marg and Gary,” Mendelsohn says. “But then watching that moment when they fell into each other’s arms – oh, my God! I couldn’t believe it!”
Sure, Helgenberger’s married to actor Alan Rosenberg, but she and Dourdan (who reportedly is single) have generated sparks ever since they made a pilot, Keys, for CBS more than a decade ago. “I was a forensic specialist, and he was my neighbor who helped me solve crimes. Check this out!” Helgenberger says, rushing over to pluck a photo from the refrigerator door. It’s a shot of her and a dreadlocked Dourdan smiling and clutching each other. “We bonded then, and there’s a lot we can do without even saying anything. It’s great to have a flirtatious thing with him now.” She isn’t the only one who thinks so. Dourdan says he often get stopped by female fans who “want me to manhandle Marg. They say, ‘She looks like she could use a man.’”
Apparently, Catherine feels the same way: Later this season, in true “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” fashion, she’ll cruise for dates in a Vegas bar. Unfortunately, the relationship she finds may become more lethal than loving when a murder case leads her back to the same nightclub. Perhaps this will push Catherine into Warrick’s arms for real this time.
“There is something between Catherine and Warrick that will come to a head,” Mendelsohn promises. “In May, there will be an opportunity for them to get closer, when they are away from the office. But this time the personal that wanted to [hook up] before may not be the one who wants to this time.”
Dourdan, for one, is ready for action. “I’m excited to see what happens with them,” he says. “I’d love to see that [sex] scene on the kitchen table. Or maybe on the desk. And then the break room. Not in the morgue, though.”
Then again, what better way to mix CSI’s old business with its new pleasures?
*A scan of this article can be found here.
