Helgenberger: It's The Sum Of Its Parts

See Also: 'For Gedda' Episode Guide

The show must go on.

The season premiere of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation airs this week, and there are a lot of changes in store for the series. The news that Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) and Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) would be leaving the show last year marked the beginning of the cast shake-ups. This season, CSI will add a new detective early on, and Gil Grissom (William Petersen) is set to say goodbye mid-season, making way for Laurence Fishburne to join the lab. "It's one of those things that happens in our lives, you know, where you're confronted with new people, you lose old people," Petersen told Entertainment Tonight.

"I end up playing Grissom longer during the day than I get to be me," Petersen said, explaining his reason for leaving the hit series. "It'll be interesting when I'm someday not playing Grissom because he's certainly been a huge part of even my philosophy over the last eight or nine years." The actor said his exit doesn't mean things are over between his character and Sara. "Sara does provide Grissom with that idea of freedom and love that he doesn't really have without her," Petersen explained.

"For Gedda" contained a rare scene for CSI: the entire team spending time together outside of work. "When we do have a moment like that, we know that it's great for the audience, and it's great for us," Petersen said. "It's always fun for us to be in a scene where we're all together because quite often we'll go weeks or months without really working with others. It's nice to share a meal with each other."

Petersen's costar Marg Helgenberger (Catherine Willows) described what she thinks makes CSI an enduring hit. "I think it's the sum of its parts, I always have said that," she said. "Ultimately, I think it's a very smartly-written show, a great mystery show with incredible style, and a cast that has an enormous amount of chemistry that we've had from day one. And it's well directed. I just think it's all the things that add up to being a [strong show]."

Helgenberger said one thing that might surprise fans about Petersen is "that he's really funny, he's a very funny guy." Even though Grissom is leaving, Helgenberger didn't say when or if Catherine would follow his example. "I kinda take it season by season, honestly," she explained. And what about a CSI movie? "I thought we were probably past that point, although I heard Billy mention that the other day," she said. "It's gotta be the right story, the right script, et cetera."

The original video interviews can be viewed here and here, courtesy of Entertainment Tonight.

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