Tonight's season premiere of CSI is more than just a brand new season.  For a lot of its fans who've been with it for the past eight seasons, William Petersen will have ten episodes and up until January before he bids goodbye to CSI, or at least in the lead's capacity.  Laurence Fishburne, meanwhile, will make his big entrance on this season's ninth episode in December, which means the two will be sharing a couple of episodes.  In fact, Petersen recently gave Fishburne a tour of the CSI set to introduce him to his new home.

"That was the hardest show any of us have done," Petersen said, in reference to filming these two episodes.  "It was hard to do, hard to shoot and hard to deal with for two weeks."

At 9pm tonight, we will learn what happens to Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) and in turn how his colleagues respond.  Jorja Fox (Sara Siddle) will also be back, as with appearances by dominatrix Lady Heather (Melinda Clarke) and one of his most taxing antagonists Natalie Davis (Jessica Collins).

Petersen called this bunch “Grissom's women” and revealed that "he doesn't kiss any of them, but the audience thinks all kinds of (stuff) is going on."

Petersen gave Fishburne a little tour of Grissom's office, a mini-museum of animals and insects in jars and tanks, a collection that includes a tarantula, a lantern fly, a fetal pig, two bovine eyes, along with a rat floating in dark liquid.

According to sources, the two have already finished filming one of the scenes that depict the passing of the torch between the two leads.  Fishburne will play the character of Dr. Raymond Langston, a former pathologist who becomes a consultant to the Las Vegas crime scene investigators.


-Glenn L. Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: USA Today, CBS
(Image Courtesy of CBS)