CBS has renewed hit freshman drama CSI: VEGAS for a second season to air during the 2022-2023 broadcast season. The CBS Original series is part of CBS’ highly successful freshman class, which has four of the top five new series this season. The season one finale aired Wednesday, Dec. 8.“The incredibly talented CSI: VEGAS creative team and cast did a superb job this first season, brilliantly updating and portraying the CSI universe with fresh stories and a new crime lab, proving that after 20 years, the CSI fan base is still hungry for more and ready to embrace a new chapter in this illustrious franchise,” said Amy Reisenbach, Executive Vice President, Current Programs, CBS.CSI: VEGAS improved its Wednesday night 10:00 PM time slot by +60% in viewers. Through the first nine episodes (as of Dec. 1), CSI: VEGAS added +3.10m viewers (6.81m from 3.71m, +84%) with 7-day playback. This is the highest playback of any new drama on any network. The entire exciting first season of CSI: VEGAS is available to binge on Paramount+.

Averaging nearly 7 million weekly viewers (with Live+7 DVR playback folded in), the CSI sequel series improved the audience for its Wednesday time slot by 60 percent. Further, the 83 percent DVR bump it enjoys is the largest of any new fall drama.As showrunner Jason Tracey told TVLine this month, “Fortunately, the network has been really supportive, really happy with the creative, and kind of delighted about the Live+7 [playback numbers], the hooks that this thing has into the audience.”TVLine readers, meanwhile, gave the season an average grade of “A”; read our full post mortem.CSI: Vegas stars Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, Mandeep Dhillon and Mel Rodriguez as the team now working the Las Vegas crime lab. As for original CSI vets Jorja Fox and/or William Petersen continuing on as Sara and Gil, TVLine hears that the former might return for Season 2, whereas the latter only signed on for the initial 10-episode series (but will stay on as an executive producer).“There’s no expectation on [Fox and Petersen]” to return for Season 2, showrunner Tracey told TVLine. “The door will always be open to a couple of legends, but we only asked them to come back to help us tell this finite number of episodes.”That said, Tracey says that with the casts of four past CSI shows to draw from, “I’d be like a kid in a candy store if I got a Season 2, to kind of ‘go shopping’ and hopefully tap in some familiar faces.”