CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, also referred to as CSI and CSI: Las Vegas, is an American procedural forensics crime drama television series which ran on CBS from October 6, 2000, to September 27, 2015, spanning 15 seasons.
The series starred William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, George Eads, Ted Danson, Laurence Fishburne, Elisabeth Shue, and Jorja Fox and was the first in the CSI franchise. The series concluded with a feature-length finale titled Immortality.
Mixing deduction and character-driven drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation follows a team of crime-scene investigators, employed by the Las Vegas Police Department, as they use physical evidence to solve murders.
The team is originally led by Gil Grissom (Petersen), a socially awkward forensic entomologist and career criminalist who is promoted to CSI supervisor following the death of a trainee investigator.
Grissom's second-in-command, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), is a single mother with a cop's instinct. Born and raised in Las Vegas, Catherine was a stripper before being recruited into law enforcement and training as a blood-spatter specialist.
Following Grissom's departure during the ninth season of the series, Catherine is promoted to supervisor. After overseeing the training of new investigator Raymond Langston (Fishburne), Willows is replaced by D.B. Russell (Danson), and recruited to the FBI shortly thereafter. Russell is a family man, a keen forensic botanist, and a veteran of the Seattle Crime Lab.
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In the series' 12th season, Russell is reunited with his former partner Julie Finlay (Elisabeth Shue), who, like Catherine, is a blood-spatter expert with an extensive knowledge of criminal psychology. With the rest of the team, they work to tackle Las Vegas's growing crime rate and are on the job 24/7, scouring the scene, collecting the evidence, and finding the missing pieces that will solve the mystery.
During the 1990s, Anthony Zuiker caught producer Jerry Bruckheimer's attention after writing his first movie script. Zuiker was convinced that a series was in the concept; Bruckheimer agreed and began developing the series with Touchstone Pictures. The studio's head at the time liked the spec script and presented it to ABC, NBC, and Fox executives, who decided to pass.
The head of drama development at CBS saw potential in the script, and the network had a pay-or-play contract with actor William Petersen, who said he wanted to do the CSI pilot. The network's executives liked the pilot so much, they decided to include it in their 2000 schedule immediately, airing on Fridays after The Fugitive.
After CBS picked up the show, the Disney-owned Touchstone decided to pull out of the project, as they didn't want to spend so much money producing a show for another network (ABC is also owned by Disney). Instead of the intended effect of making CBS cancel the show (since it no longer had a producer), Bruckheimer was able to convince Alliance Atlantis to step in as a producer, saving the show and adding CBS as another producer.
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Initially, CSI was thought to benefit from The Fugitive (a remake of the 1960s series), which was expected to be a hit, but by the end of 2000, CSI had a much larger audience. The show began on Friday at 9:00 following The Fugitive, premiering on October 6, 2000, with an impressive 5.4 in the 18-49 demo and 17 million viewers. The show hovered around that mark for the next 10 episodes. The final Friday episode, I-15 Murders aired on January 12, 2001. The show moved to Thursday at 9:00 following Survivor on February 1, 2001, episode Fahrenheit 932 and remained in that time slot until Season 11.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television and CBS Productions, which became CBS Paramount Television in the fall of 2006 and CBS Television Studios three years later. Formerly a co-production with the now-defunct Alliance Atlantis Communications, that company's interest was later bought by the investment firm GS Capital Partners, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs.
CSI was originally shot at Rye Canyon, a corporate campus owned by Lockheed Martin situated in the Valencia area of Santa Clarita, California, due to the Santa Clarita Valley's strong similarity to the outskirts of Las Vegas; after episode 11, filming shifted to the nearby Santa Clarita Studios. Occasionally, the cast still shot on location in Las Vegas, although primarily Las Vegas was used solely for second unit photography such as exterior shots of streets.
Other California locations include Verdugo Hills High School, UCLA's Royce Hall, Pasadena City Hall, and California State University, Los Angeles. After season five, CSI episodes were primarily filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, California, but since Santa Clarita's surroundings had proven so versatile, CSI continued to shoot some outdoor scenes there.
CSI's theme song was, since the last episode of season one, Who Are You, written by Pete Townshend with vocals by lead singer Roger Daltrey of The Who. Daltrey made a special appearance in the season-seven episode Living Legend, which also contained many musical references such as the words Who's next on a dry-erase board in the episode's opening sequence. In certain countries, to avoid music licensing fees, a unique theme was used, instead.
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but who we are never stop changing.
Gil Grissom
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