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LOVE, EXCITING AND IN THE WORKS FOR A REALLY LONG TIME: The “CSI” season-finale shocker that Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) and Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) are an item wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment fling. It’s been in the works for six years, Fox said at the Television Critics Association’s summer meeting.

“In this tiny little character description that you get when you’re trying out for a show, it suggested that she was a love interest for Gil Grissom,” Fox said. “Being that it was there, along with other little strange things - she could drink anybody under the table and had some social problems - I was very intrigued and sort of had been gearing up from the beginning of the show that this might happen.”

The couple won’t be going public. “In this instance, the viewers will be ahead of our CSIs,” said executive producer Carol Mendelsohn. “The viewers will be in on it, but the CSIs will not know.”

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