Jorja Fox and George Eads were fired 
- story here. I guess the network got tired of the “play sick to get more money” tactics after the Everyone Loves Raymond debacle.
What does this mean to the show? Do they recast or write the characters out?
They’ll probably do both.
This is a shock. I had no idea. Although I do understand Petersen’s gripe about the franchising of the show…Miami is not as good, and I wasn’t impressed with the Miami/New York crossover show.
Law & Order did a better job franchising, I think.
The spiky-haired dude has been begging to get out into the field more, so it would seem like a natural evolution of the show to promote him and bring on a new lab tech.
Sounds like we got some stupid, greedy producers in charge here. Goodbye, CSI.
“Let’s mess with the group dynamic of our highest rated show.”
Brilliant, CBS. F***ing brilliant.
I won’t be watching any more.
“Playing sick”? Marg Helgenberger and William Petersen didn’t show up for the first day of filming, but their explanations that they really were sick were accepted.
Jorja Fox, on the other hand, showed up to work Thursday and was told she was fired because she hadn’t sent a letter saying she’d come in - a letter she says she did send. I am less clear about the circumstances surrounding George Eads, but it looks like Fox is getting the shaft here.
From the linked article:
Pretty noncommital, but now Petersen has chimed in. (link to WPAP; click on latest news in the upper right )
That’s slightly encouraging, given that WP is an exec producer as well as the series lead.
If this isn’t reversed, it’s the beginning of the end for CSI: The Original. The writing has suffered since the spinoffs aired (WP has been outspoken about this, and although I think he’s got an ego the size of Illinois I agree with him here). The character of Sara Sidle has a following far greater than her fith-place ranking in the credits would indicate, and Jorja is Sara - recasting would be ludicrous. Knowing this show, I fear they’ll write out the characters in the most humiliating way possible, i.e., a passing mention of Sara driving drunk and crashing her car, killing herself and Nick.
What can fans do? Write and call! Here’s a list swiped from Your Tax Dollars At Work, an awesome messageboard.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Santa Clarita Studios
25135 Anza Dr.
Valencia, CA 91355
If Faxing:
(661)294-4925
ATTN: Carol Mendelsohn, Executive Producer (or, again, whoever)
CBS News
555 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
CBS Television Network
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Main Number:
(212) 975-4114
Les Moonves: (323) 575-2345
Whats the definition of a contract again? I’ve never much cared for Jorja in anything she has done but I really liked George Eads in the show. If you are going to play hardball like they did you have to know the consequences. Their agents probably told them there was no way they would get fired if they had a sick-out. Time for a new agent. Eads was just about out of show biz when he got this job, now he is well paid and well known and he threw it away. It is not like Raymond. If the brother isn’t there then there wouldn’t be a show. I think the show wouldn’t work too well without Peterson or Helgenberger but everyone else can be replaced.
It had better be reversed, or I won’t be watching another episode of the show.
Very similar words to those I used on CBS.com’s feedback form when I heard the news yesterday. Along with words to the effect of “breaking up one of the best ensemble casts currently on TV will not only destroy the group dynamic, but will almost certainly hurt the show”.
I for one will miss Eads, not so much Fox.
But regardless, I think we are not considering that the actors may have been behaving like bratty prima donnas - maybe they desearved the boot. Certainly we should not expect others who work on the show to put up with bad behavoirs. Let’s not forget Doherty…
That’s the problem of the network execs. They get paid to deal with primadonnas and still produce a show.
CSI helped save CBS’s bacon. The last time they had a consistent number 1 show was in the era of Dallas. Paying the members of the ensemble in a manner consistent with the financial rewards that their work is generating for the network is only sensible.
I’m not a fan, haven’t watched CSI, but I like Fox and Eads (liked 'em better on ER, but that’s beside the point) and it seems odd that two out of what, eight, would get the ax when everyone on the show should be getting raises and kudos and an extreme amount of affection from the network every day.
‘Well it worked for Law & Order when we recast rolls, so it will work for CSI when we recast rolls’ is probably the thinking behind this stupidity. The last seasons it has been turning into the Wil and Marg show, which annoys me no end.
For Nick there will probably be some mention that his promotion did go through and he transferred to another CSI Unit. Unfortunately, Sara will be killed driving drunk and CSI will have to prove that she was the one responsible for the accident
CSI always struck me as the type of show that can go through frequent cast changes if necessary. Kind of like Law & Order.
Marc
They wanted to hold up CBS for more money? Don’t they remember what happened to Suzanne Somers?
And what, $100,000 per episode isn’t enough? What a couple of spoiled greed-heads! :mad:
CSI never struck me as very character driven. I don’t think the show will miss a beat without these actors.
The economics of network prime time TV has changed a lot in recent years. There’s a lot more competition out there and you just can’t shell out the same bucks you used to to make a 1 hour drama. What used to be standard salaries for actors in highly rated shows are now considered simply outrageous. NBC would have been happy to keep Frasier running for another decade if the actors had taken 90% pay cuts. (And aren’t we all glad they didn’t?)
So you are increasingly seeing networks dropping actors from successful ensemble cast shows simply because the salary expectations are not realistic.
This also explains why “reality” shows are so popular with execs. Very cheap and you don’t have to pay a lot of stars ever increasing salaries each year.
OTOH, firing 2000 useless network execs is off the table.
So, if you’re making $200K a year on network TV, shut up and smile.
Exactly. The real star of the show is the hopped-up forensic science, along with lots of squishy-crunchy recreations of bullets slamming into human bodies.
Petersen has his Spock bit and Helgenberger has her… uh… HOT bit, but the secondary characters always struck me as being interchangable.
So, if all that is true, then it was damn stupid to pay the cast of Friends $1 mill each per ep, wasn’t it? Gee, they must have lost TONS of money on Friends. They probably just put it on for the prestige.
'Cause the only other explanation is that it’s possible to pay six stars $1 million per ep on a #1 rated show and STILL make money on it! Which makes the producers of CSI a bunch of cheap-ass bozos. And network execs have NEVER behaved in any other than a supremely fair and rational manner …
yeah, that was sarcasm.
The thing with Friends (and David Schwimmer, who has lawyers for parents, was the one who came up with this idea) is that they negotiated together, in an all-for-one and one-for-all scenario.
NBC might have gotten away with replacing one or two, but all six? They couldn’t risk that.
I think if ensemble casts stick together for salary negotiations, they have a lot more clout. I’ll never understand why Rob Lowe was the only one NOT to get a raise during The West Wing, nor why the other cast members didn’t stick up for him. Unless there was more going on behind the scenes there that I’m not aware of.