12/21/00- Updated 07:16 PM ET

VALENCIA, Calif. - Harsh sunlight burst through the ceiling of a burned-out house, turning the CSI criminalists into shadows against the charred walls. Smoke particles hung in the air, but, three months after an arson, the crime scene appeared cold.

“There’s nothing left, Gris,” Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) said to his boss, Gil Grissom.

“More than you think,” the cerebral Grissom (William Petersen ) responded, already rooting out clues.

“More than you think” might as well be the slogan for CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It drew scant attention before its premiere but has emerged as TV’s top-rated new drama, getting about 15 million viewers per week, more than its heavily promoted lead-in, The Fugitive.

The Friday sleeper has turned forensic science - the evidence collection and examination that traditionally have served as background on police shows - into prime time’s hot new occupation.

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If the subject matter is a little ghoulish, so be it, Zuiker and Mendelsohn say. They toned down the gore factor after test audiences blanched at all the blood and bugs … but only a little. A mass murderer made bloody artwork of his victims in one episode, and well-fed maggots constitute a cast of thousands in tonight’s offering: “Sex, Lies and Larvae.”

“My only fear about the job was whether I had the stomach for it,” jokes Jorja Fox, who plays Sara Sidle, an enthusiastic but inexperienced investigator.

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