‘CSI Vegas’ Premiere Recap – ‘CSI’ Sequel Series on CBS

CBS this Wednesday undermined familiar territory with the debut of CSI: Vegas, the franchise’s first offshoot in six and a half years. With Jorja Fox and William Petersen in its ranks, did the spinoff offer a satisfying mix of familiar and new?

CSI: Vegas is sparked by an assassination attempt against former LVPD captain Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle), who is now living with Fuchs corneal disease. Brass puts a few bullets in his attacker, although the mystery of who hired the killer is great. Brass calls friend / former CSI Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), who arrives from San Diego and reports that her husband Gil Grissom (William Petersen) is busy on his boat. Catherine Willows, meanwhile, we learn that she is retired and currently in Dublin to visit a new grandchild. Brass tells Sara that he would feel better if she stayed around to help with the investigation, and she agrees.

Sara meets and gets along well with Maxine Roby, head of the Vegas Crime Lab (Chicago Med‘s Paula Newsome), the woman who took on the “dream job” as Sara walked away. Sara also meets Allie (After life‘s Mandeep Dhillon), a young CSI level 2; Josh (Kingdom‘s Matt Lauria), a Level 3 CSI who excels at reconstructing crime scenes (and for whom an otherwise committed Allie seems to have a soft spot); CSI Chris Park (In search of Alaska‘s Jay Lee); and forensic pathologist Hugo (The last man on earthby Mel Rodriguez).

The Brass case first points to a kidnapper, named Lucky, from an old case, but the analysis of brewer’s yeast, fingerprints, the decapitated head of a so-called Golden Snitch, a revealing typewriter and more leads them to a recent rapist on parole. But what is really at stake here, Sara and Maxine realize, is not an attempt on Brass’s life but a sequence of events that very deliberately leads to their discovery of a storage unit … manipulated evidence to close Business.

Although Sara insists that Hodges is surely trapped, even the whiff of irregularity immediately triggers legal action and also threatens to undermine perhaps a thousand convictions over the years.

What can the old and new members of the team do to prove Hodges’ innocence and thus prevent dozens of killers from being released onto the streets? By just doing what they do best, Gil says, appearing (finally) in the very last frame of the first, and “follow the evidence.”

What did you think about CSI: Vegas? Will you continue to monitor their evidence tracking?