Post by nhmystix on Jul 20, 2006 9:02:23 GMT -6
Originally posted: July 19, 2006
A 'terrifying' romance on 'CSI'
featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/07/a_terrifying_ro.html#more
It's a tube truism that the TV shows that attract the most passionate fan bases are genre programs: sci-fi shows, vampire dramas, teen-centric fare such as "Everwood" and "Veronica Mars."
Well, that truism is wrong.
“CSI,” which is as popular and mainstream as a program gets, has one of the most ferocious fan bases around -- so TV writers found out about a minute after the show’s sixth season finale aired in May.
In the final scene of that episode, Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) and Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) were shown in an intimate, bedroom setting. Clearly something was going on between them, and (according to executive producer Carol Mendelsohn) it had been going on for a while.
Fans flooded various Web sites, including this one (here and here), to parse, debate, analyze and spew opinions about what happened between Sidle and Grissom. The floodgates opened, and if television critics hadn’t been aware of the show’s passionate fan base before, they surely were by the end of May.
“Going into the seventh season, I love the fact that everybody cares about our show,” Mendelsohn said in May.
Still, Naren Shankar, another executive producer on the show, said that “CSI” writers knew that the final scene would cause controversy among fans.
“It’s impossible to find a scene or a moment when you’re dealing with that type of situation that isn’t going to [tick] off half the people,” he said after a panel on the program at the biannual Television Critics Association convention in Pasadena, Calif.
Still, the producers and actors for the show all agreed that it was time for Grissom and Sidle, who’d flirted for six seasons, to show their relationship in a new light. “It was the right thing to do for those characters and when we talked about it, everybody felt that. Everybody felt it was the right moment,” Shankar said.
Mendelsohn insisted that the glimpse into the characters’ private lives wasn’t provoked by “CSI’s” upcoming Thursday night showdown with the soapier “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“We are going to do the same season we set out to do,” Mendelsohn told reporters after the “CSI” session. “We’re not going to change our game because of `Grey’s Anatomy.’”
For her part, Fox says she was “thrilled” to get the script pages with that intimate scene between Grissom and Sidle.
“I had sort of been gearing up from the beginning of the show that that might happen,” she told critics during the press session, noting that it’s never been entirely clear, even to those who work on the show, whether the two were an item before either arrived in Las Vegas to work as crime scene investigators.
“It’s also terrifying because I think there’s a certain peace that comes with doing more of a procedural show,” she noted. “There’s been about 50 percent of the audience who would like to know more about the characters and about 50 percent who would really rather stick to the [crime scene] stories. And I think the writers did something bold and brilliant by trying to just really follow their hearts, which is what I think we try to do.
“When you’ve got a split that is that significant, all you can really do is to kind of just tell what you feel passionate about and hope that people go on the road with you,” she added. “But it is really exciting, yeah, and scary, because then you step out into these story lines and you’re like what if they go badly?”
“CSI’s” producers said the story line involving Grissom and Sidle is a natural evolution of the Grissom character, who’s been around the kind of misery and deviance that is the cause of so much crime, and tried to remain in his own little world -- but even he couldn’t stay there forever.
“In Sin City, our CSI’s go out in the field every night and they solve these crimes, but as Naren has said to me, it’s bailing the ocean with a thimble,” Mendelsohn said. In Season 7, “we’re going to explore what effect does this have on Catherine [Willows, played by Marg Helgenberger], Grissom, the rest of the team. We will push Grissom to an emotional place, a sabbatical of sorts.”
(Petersen, who’s doing a play on the East Coast in the fall, will be out of the show for two “CSI” episodes, Shankar noted.)
“What do you do when something you’ve kept at bay for the longest time, which is really the sadness and the misery of a certain part of this job, actually gets through your defenses?” Shankar said.
“Part of what we were doing with Grissom and Sara being together is, here’s a guy who for the first time in maybe his life is reaching out to another human being,” he noted. “This is a very guarded and private person. It’s even difficult to say what was the interaction with [recurring character] Lady Heather -- you could make the argument that it was more academic and intellectual than physical. But here is something that he is doing that is uncharacteristic.
“And that prompts the question -- Why? He’s going through some changes. He’s kind of in a position where he’s feeling like [asking the questions], `Is this all that I am? Am I a guy who just likes to finish the crossword puzzle? Am I more than that? And if I am more than that, what am I and who am I going to share that with?’
"And that’s really the longer term [theme], in the sense of Grissom as the spine of our show - that’s where we’re going.”
A 'terrifying' romance on 'CSI'
featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/07/a_terrifying_ro.html#more
It's a tube truism that the TV shows that attract the most passionate fan bases are genre programs: sci-fi shows, vampire dramas, teen-centric fare such as "Everwood" and "Veronica Mars."
Well, that truism is wrong.
“CSI,” which is as popular and mainstream as a program gets, has one of the most ferocious fan bases around -- so TV writers found out about a minute after the show’s sixth season finale aired in May.
In the final scene of that episode, Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) and Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) were shown in an intimate, bedroom setting. Clearly something was going on between them, and (according to executive producer Carol Mendelsohn) it had been going on for a while.
Fans flooded various Web sites, including this one (here and here), to parse, debate, analyze and spew opinions about what happened between Sidle and Grissom. The floodgates opened, and if television critics hadn’t been aware of the show’s passionate fan base before, they surely were by the end of May.
“Going into the seventh season, I love the fact that everybody cares about our show,” Mendelsohn said in May.
Still, Naren Shankar, another executive producer on the show, said that “CSI” writers knew that the final scene would cause controversy among fans.
“It’s impossible to find a scene or a moment when you’re dealing with that type of situation that isn’t going to [tick] off half the people,” he said after a panel on the program at the biannual Television Critics Association convention in Pasadena, Calif.
Still, the producers and actors for the show all agreed that it was time for Grissom and Sidle, who’d flirted for six seasons, to show their relationship in a new light. “It was the right thing to do for those characters and when we talked about it, everybody felt that. Everybody felt it was the right moment,” Shankar said.
Mendelsohn insisted that the glimpse into the characters’ private lives wasn’t provoked by “CSI’s” upcoming Thursday night showdown with the soapier “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“We are going to do the same season we set out to do,” Mendelsohn told reporters after the “CSI” session. “We’re not going to change our game because of `Grey’s Anatomy.’”
For her part, Fox says she was “thrilled” to get the script pages with that intimate scene between Grissom and Sidle.
“I had sort of been gearing up from the beginning of the show that that might happen,” she told critics during the press session, noting that it’s never been entirely clear, even to those who work on the show, whether the two were an item before either arrived in Las Vegas to work as crime scene investigators.
“It’s also terrifying because I think there’s a certain peace that comes with doing more of a procedural show,” she noted. “There’s been about 50 percent of the audience who would like to know more about the characters and about 50 percent who would really rather stick to the [crime scene] stories. And I think the writers did something bold and brilliant by trying to just really follow their hearts, which is what I think we try to do.
“When you’ve got a split that is that significant, all you can really do is to kind of just tell what you feel passionate about and hope that people go on the road with you,” she added. “But it is really exciting, yeah, and scary, because then you step out into these story lines and you’re like what if they go badly?”
“CSI’s” producers said the story line involving Grissom and Sidle is a natural evolution of the Grissom character, who’s been around the kind of misery and deviance that is the cause of so much crime, and tried to remain in his own little world -- but even he couldn’t stay there forever.
“In Sin City, our CSI’s go out in the field every night and they solve these crimes, but as Naren has said to me, it’s bailing the ocean with a thimble,” Mendelsohn said. In Season 7, “we’re going to explore what effect does this have on Catherine [Willows, played by Marg Helgenberger], Grissom, the rest of the team. We will push Grissom to an emotional place, a sabbatical of sorts.”
(Petersen, who’s doing a play on the East Coast in the fall, will be out of the show for two “CSI” episodes, Shankar noted.)
“What do you do when something you’ve kept at bay for the longest time, which is really the sadness and the misery of a certain part of this job, actually gets through your defenses?” Shankar said.
“Part of what we were doing with Grissom and Sara being together is, here’s a guy who for the first time in maybe his life is reaching out to another human being,” he noted. “This is a very guarded and private person. It’s even difficult to say what was the interaction with [recurring character] Lady Heather -- you could make the argument that it was more academic and intellectual than physical. But here is something that he is doing that is uncharacteristic.
“And that prompts the question -- Why? He’s going through some changes. He’s kind of in a position where he’s feeling like [asking the questions], `Is this all that I am? Am I a guy who just likes to finish the crossword puzzle? Am I more than that? And if I am more than that, what am I and who am I going to share that with?’
"And that’s really the longer term [theme], in the sense of Grissom as the spine of our show - that’s where we’re going.”
