Marg Helgenberger to leave CSI

Bad news for fans of the long-running crime drama CSI –- Marg Helgenberger, who plays supervisor Catherine Willows, is leaving the long-running show in January after more than 250 episodes.

 

Helgenberger, 52, said she had considered leaving at the end of last season, but decided she was "having a hard time letting go and that I was not yet done playing this character. That's why I decided to extend my contract a little bit."

The news came as the show’s producers announced that former Cheers actor Ted Danson is to join the cast of Las Vegas forensic detectives, replacing the departing Laurence Fishburne, who is off to play Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White in the forthcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel.

Danson, 63, will play a new character, supervisor D.B. Russell -- a family man with four children, an unconventional hippie upbringing, and a good sex life.

Executive producer Carol Mendelsohn said Russell has his own unique process for solving crimes, adding that "the season will be a little lighter. There is more humour than there was last season.”

Russell (who replaces Fishburne's character Dr Ray Langston), will affect Willows' role within the team.

"Ted’s character is pretty endearing and he has a way of looking at a crime scene that’s a fresh perspective and it gets under everybody’s skin – but in a good way,” said Mendelsohn, noting that the crew took some “liberties” with the way the crime last season was solved. Willows, ultimately, is a team player and may directly be impacted in the fallout.

“Marg will be around until Episode 12,” she added. “People come and go and come back, so hopefully when we say goodbye, that won’t be the last time we see her.”

CSI is one of the most widely-viewed TV shows in the world and is seen in 200 countries. But U.S. audiences have fallen by about four million viewers in the past two years since original headliner William Petersen left the show in 2009 and Fishburne took over, bringing a far more serious edge to the series.

While  Ray Langston ended last season being accused of murder, it is currently not known if Fishburne will be returning in some form to conclude his character’s story-arc.