THE TV COLUMN : Fishburne’s DNA a CSI match
Posted on Sunday, August 24, 2008
Last month at the TV critics confab in Beverly Hills, the early buzz on CBS day was that beloved William Petersen would be leaving CSI after 10 episodes this fall.
That noise you heard was the weeping and wailing of the show’s millions of fans. After eight seasons, CSI is still CBS ’ No. 1 program. However, I got an e-mail last week from a reader wanting to know if Petersen “got too big for his britches, wanted more money or was just burned out.” I suppose there are plenty of Hollywood examples of the first two instances, but in this case it’s closer to the third. If you have to pick one, it’s being burned out.
Shooting a weekly hour drama is grueling, demanding work, especially if you are the lead and in most scenes. Your life is not your own. You arrive early and leave late. It can grind you down. Petersen has been the star of CSI since it debuted in 2000.
Every now and then an actor needs to take a break and recharge his batteries. That’s what Petersen is doing. He’s leaving after 10 episodes to perform in a play in Chicago.
CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told the critics that even though Petersen is leaving, “I predict it will not be the last time that we see him. But certainly, I predict that that show, too, will be extremely resilient.” Tassler was coy about who would replace Petersen, if one can replace such an important part of a series.
“I don’t think you replace Billy,” she said, “but you sort of look at adding elements to the show that are really going to invigorate and contribute to the sort of the alchemy of the show where it is today.
“ They’ve created a great character. He’s a doctor, a scientist who’s got a very interesting DNA that is going to inform the duality of the character. So I think, it’s not necessarily replacing Billy, but it’s adding an element that is going to sort of inform the dynamic of the team today.” Alchemy. Duality. Inform the dynamic. Fancy talk for a network honcho.
When asked to explain this mysterious DNA trait of the new character, Tassler said the new guy who will eventually become the boss is a man “who was going to be going on a journey of self-discovery.” Tassler told us the new character shares the same generic profile as some serial killers. Yikes. If you’re thinking Dexter, stop it. Dexter is a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. CSI’s character will not have acted on any impulses.
Last week CBS announced they’d found their man. Laurence Fishburne will be joining the cast of CSI in the ninth episode.
That’s a big Hollywood name.
CBS says, “Fishburne will play a former pathologist who is now working as a visiting college lecturer, teaching a course in criminalistics. His focus is on understanding criminal behavior, how and why people commit acts of violence — tendencies he disturbingly sees within himself.” In the course of a murder investigation, he meets the CSI team and ultimately joins the gang as a Level-1 CSI.
This will be Fishburne’s first shot as a dramatic series regular on prime-time TV. Of course, to an entire generation he’s forever immortalized as Cowboy Curtis on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Tweaking under way. With the new fall season only about a month away, it may seem a bit late in the game for the networks to still be tinkering with their series. Nonetheless, tinkering is what’s going on. For example, the folks at ER made a big deal last month when they announced that Angela Bassett would be joining the series.
After a tour of the ER set at Warner Bros. Studios last month, executive producer John Wells told the assembled TV critics that Bassett would be joining the cast for the show’s 15 th and final season. It promises to be a satisfying one for fans because Noah Wyle (Dr. John Carter ) will be returning to add closure. Wyle left in 2005 after the 11 th season.
“We’re bringing a number of things to a conclusion,” Wells said of the final season. “One of the reasons Noah is coming back at the very end is we had always planned that the end of the series would involve Noah returning because he was so central as a new character at the very beginning, an entering character growing up in the ER.” And Wells will still be crusading to the end.
“Some of the things at the beginning of the series that we were doing [were ] about health care,” he said. “We’re actually in worse shape than we were 14 years ago when we first started doing the show. “ The health-care system, which seemed like it was in decay then — which was part of what the initial premise of the series was, how do the people cope — it’s actually worse. “ So we’re going to be talking during the season about the condition of the health-care system because it will be our last time to really comment on it. Not only have we not solved things, but we have actually allowed the system to deteriorate.” Bassett will play the new boss in the final season, but now NBC has sweetened the deal. Courtney B. Vance has also joined the cast in a recurring role as Basset’s character’s husband. And, imagine this, Vance and Bassett are married in real life ! Vance is perhaps best known for his five years on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. ER will be the first time the two have acted in a series together. The TV Column appears every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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