William Peterson leaving CSI

from an email from William Peterson to the producers of "CSI":

Hi Guys; I know we've talked about this before, but I've made my final decision: I'm leaving the show. I mean, the episodes we've already partially filmed I'll help finish, just for creative integrity, of course. I know you've already got the script for the one where I appear shirtless, and there's that group of models in trouble. But after that, I've really got to go.
Frankly, I'm not sure where the show can go anymore, creatively. I think murder has been done to death.



I think all the shots of travelling through blood from a bullets' perspective are cool and stuff, but it just isn't fresh anymore. And that idea you were bouncing around: the shot through the blood, but with me shrunk down travelling through the blood in a nano-spaceship? Ummm... Can you hear that? That's the "it's done" bell!!!

I mean, maybe I could do a guest shot or something, if you try to carry on without me. Like, I don't know, if Jorja Fox was coming back, and the plot really calls for a hot love scene. Well, I'll see if I can make some time.

But aside from that, I'm not sure what else you could do? I think we've killed everyone there is to kill, and in every way there is to die. I saw the whiteboard in the writers' room. I mean, "guy impaled on show girl's high heel", "old man's head sliced off by out of control roulette wheel", "woman asphyxiates from Celine Dion withdrawal"? Seriously, I hear that "all done" bell ringing louder. And that idea about the guy killing someone and cooking his liver? sounds familiar.

I can't even wash the finger print powder off my hands anymore. Besides, it's been like 9 years, aren't audiences eventually going to figure out that forensics people really don't actually catch anyone, they are just lab geeks?

OK, I gotta go live and die in you know where,

Bill