According to Gary Dourdan, who played Warrick Brown on "CSI," there wasn't a lot of faith in "CSI" when it first debuted, and CBS was looking to get their money back by modeling the series off of "Law & Order," with a focus on the week-to-week cases as opposed to the people actually solving them. "CBS never expected us to be a success. They wanted to spin the show off, like Dick Wolf does [with Law & Order], so that no one will get very connected with the characters. They get connected with the show," Dourdan told Philadelphia Magazine in June 2007.
According to Dourdan, CBS was very aware that they were pushing characters to the side in favor of a cookie-cutter procedural, but success obviously changed the name of the game for the network when it came to "CSI."
"That's something CBS was aware of, something they were trying to do. It's been a challenge to push all of that aside and come to work and give your all," the actor said. Unfortunately, Dourdan's character was killed off as the series moved into the ninth season. After the original show ended, the franchise began again with a new series, "CSI: Vegas." In it, viewers can reunite with fan-favorite characters such as Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) and Gil Grissom to witness their characters' continued growth and journeys.
