Jorja Fox takes time off from playing CSI’s forensics investigator Sara Sidle to show us around the set of the hit TV Show

The crime lab  

“We have one of the best equipped labs in the US, even though it’s only TV. A lot of the equipment is given to us by the companies that make it, and there’s a technical expert with us every day. I could probably use the equipment to fingerprint and identify body fluids, but most other things vanish from my brain as soon as I do them. I’ve never been told what Sara’s specialism is. We only found out a lot of the background to each of our characters when a website was created with character profiles on it halfway through the first series. I found out then that Sara studied nuclear fusion.”

Grissom’s office  

“The office beautifully reflects the character of William Petersen’s CSI chief Gil Grissom. There are a few little in-jokes, like someone has the producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s business card in a drawer, and there used to be a Billy Bass singing fish over the door, but that had to go because everyone kept setting it off. There’s usually a crossword puzzle on the desk, so there are lots of scene where people come in and Grissom’s doing a crossword. I try to block out the things in the jars on the shelves like the in vitro pig. When we started off there were some real crime scene photos on the walls, but I think those have been replaced by our own cases. One of the joys of this series is working closely with William again. Most of my scenes were with him for the first three series, but then Sara stopped chasing him, so I’ve missed working with him so much.”

The autopsy room  

“When we started off the show we were liming in a disused morgue, but they decided we had to have a set when a real body got dropped off by mistake. Now we have something that’s more state-of-the-art that most real autopsy rooms. I love doing scenes in there, but I do have days where I have to skip lunch because the special effects are so good and getting grosser. There was one story with some mangled legs and I thought I was going to pass out. Nothing is real, not even the skeleton. It’s not the gore that gets to me, it’s the idea of how these people died.”

What’s in store for the new series?  

“CSI” has always had its share of shocking storylines, but perhaps none has taken viewers’ breath away quite as much as the final scene of the last series in which CSI chief Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his colleague Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) were revealed to be having an affair.

The storyline incurred the wrath of the many fans who believed it would be fellow investigator Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) who would win Gil’s heart yet, when the show returns this week, Grissom and Sara will still be together.

“It will be a secret to everyone but the audience,” says “CSI”’s executive producer, Carol Mendelsohn. “But it’s not just going to be the Grissom and Sara show from now on. The bones of this series will be the toll the job has had on the investigators.”

[…]