'CSI': Las Vegas, Miami or NY? Quiz

Answer: Las Vegas

Gil Grissom (played by William Petersen) is the first CSI Supervisor on the original series, 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (usually just called 'CSI' until the later entries into the franchise came along), managing the night shift in Las Vegas between 2000 and 2009, when he leaves to join his fiancée Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) in Costa Rica. He later makes a couple of guest appearances, including the final episode of the series, when he and Sara reconcile (in the interim, they had married and divorced) and sail off into the wild. In the later series 'CSI: Vegas', they have remarried, and both return to work with the Las Vegas CSI team.

Grissom is the least like a stereotypical police officer of the three supervisors in this quiz. He is essentially a scientist - specifically, an entomologist, whose fascination with his bugs help solve cases, but also sometimes makes it hard for him to relate to others. This is especially seen when he begins to lose his hearing from an inherited disorder (we previously knew his mother was deaf, which is why he is so facile in sign language); while surgery restores his hearing, he never regains the same lighthearted enthusiasm as he previously displayed - there is always a darker edge to his attitude.

Answer: Las Vegas

Catherine Willows (portrayed by Marg Helgenberger) is the Assistant CSI Supervisor under Gil Grissom, succeeding him as Chief Supervisor before being demoted due to a scandal in the department, then leaving CSI to join the FBI, and finally returning in the final episode of the series to resume as Chief Supervisor.

Willows' specialty is blood spatter analysis. Her earlier time working as an exotic dancer before gaining a degree in Medical Science and becoming a CSI lab technician occasionally provides her with useful insights into the cases with which she is involved. She was raised by a single mother, and only learns during the run of the show that her father was Sam Braun, a casino owner whose DNA she checked as part of an investigation. Their relationship periodically causes complications, but following his death she gains some financial security from what she has inherited. In the sequel 'CSI: Vegas', she is running one of his casinos before returning to work again with the CSI team.

Answer: Las Vegas

Warrick Brown (played by Gary Dourdan) is a video analysis specialist on the CSI team until his death in the first episode of Season 9. A native of Las Vegas, he has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is also a recovering gambling addict, an issue he is frequently shown wrestling with as he works in the casinos.

His death, shot by a high-ranking corrupt police officer who had framed him for a murder of which he was acquitted, shocks the team, especially Grissom, in whose arms he dies, and Willows. In the next season, we learn that the members of the team have set up a college fund for Eli, the son who was born at some unspecified time following his marriage in Season 6.

Answer: Las Vegas

Nick Stokes (played by George Eads) was a specialist in hair and fibre analysis when he joined the Las Vegas CSI after transferring from his native Dallas. He is already on the team in the pilot, and is promoted in Season 10 to the position of Assistant Supervisor to Catherine Willows - but this doesn't last long, due to his involvement in the Nate Haskell affair with Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne); on his subsequent return he is working as a Level III CSI again, under the new leadership of DB Russell (Ted Danson). In the last episode of Season 15 (the final episode before the series-ending 'Finale'), he decides to leave and go to San Diego, where he will be head of the Crime Lab.

Unlike the other 'CSI' shows in this quiz, the original team rarely carry guns, and there is little involvement with gunfire - except for Nick, who does seem to carry a gun regularly, and is prepared to use it when necessary. This causes a problem when he shoots Nate Haskell in Los Angeles, well outside his proper territory. Still, even he is less trigger-happy than the members of the other teams.

Answer: Las Vegas

Every crime lab needs someone to examine their bodies to determine COD (cause of death) and provide other relevant information. Dr Al Robbins (played by Robert David Hall) fills this role for the Las Vegas team. He does not join them on the scene very often, usually sending an assistant, because he has prosthetic legs, having been injured as a teenager when hit by a drunk driver. This is one of several characters played by Robert David Hall to share his real-life disability.

As County Coroner, he is visited regularly by the CSI Supervisor, and gets on well with them all over the 15 seasons of the show. He and Grissom, especially, share a quirky sense of humor and appreciate each other's esoteric collection of interesting facts. He and Raymond Langston bond over their shared medical backgrounds while Langston is on the team.

While the character was listed as recurring for the first two seasons, before becoming a main character from the third, he appeared in most episodes. Over the entire run, he appeared in 327 episodes, more than any other member of the CSI franchise.

Answer: Miami

Lieutenant Horatio Caine (played by David Caruso) is commonly called H by the members of the Miami-Dade CSI, a team he assembled personally, and treats as proteges. He doesn't just supervise the team, he holds them together and forges them into a justice-seeking force. His trademark, often part of the opening scene of an episode, is flipping his sunglasses into place before making some very obvious comment as if it is a significant insight. He runs the crime lab from the first episode ('Golden Parachute'), involving a plane crash in the Everglades, through to the final episode ('Habeas Corpus'), in which he has to clear one of the team who is implicated in a murder, ten years later.

Caine's sense of mission in his role is demonstrated multiple times as he connects with the children involved in the cases he investigates. Sometimes it gets really personal, as when he flew to Brazil to confront (and kill) the man who was responsible for the deaths of his older brother and his wife. Marisol, the older sister of one of his team members, may have been dying of leukemia, and they may have only been married between one episode and the one in which she was shot, but still...

Answer: Miami

Calleigh Duquesne (played by Emily Procter) is Horatio Caine's second-in-command starting in the middle of the first season, when she is promoted to replace a departing character. A ballistics specialist, she also is skilled in DNA analysis (although, to be fair, the high-tech gadgets seem to do most of the actual work). Given that the CSI team in Miami are very hands-on in the field, regularly being involved in chasing suspects, her choice of footwear seems curious to me - the couture suits may be viable, but those 6-inch stiletto heels are frankly ludicrous. Then again, maybe it makes sense as a way of throwing suspects off guard, especially when coupled with her soft Southern accent.

Calleigh has a complex relationship with teammate Eric Delko, which starts as workmates before they become close friends, with occasional romantic interludes. By the end of the show, when she decides to adopt two babies who were involved with one of their recent cases, he offers to share in the adoption as co-parent, but she prefers to be a single mother, feeling that it would at least be a stable situation, citing the volatility of their relationship to that point.

Answer: Miami

Eric Delko (played by Adam Rodriguez) is a fingerprint and drug expert, a member of the Miami-Dade CSI team for most of the show, although in Season 8 he leaves to join the State's Attorney as an investigator. There is some hostility when he appears as a witness for the defense, and helps exonerate a man they feel was guilty. He later returns to work with them as an undercover agent for an AIB investigation of the team (don't worry, it all got sorted) before rejoining them for the final two seasons.

As the flashback episode at the start of Season 8 showed us, Delko was a tow truck driver whom Caine encountered on the job, and persuaded to join the police force - intending to then recruit him to the CSI team. His Cuban background is often helpful in getting him to dig out relevant information from community members who are distrustful of English-speaking police. His sister Marisol (Alana de la Garza), whom we meet when she is dying of leukemia, compromises Delko's position due to his assistance in obtaining medical cannabis for her consumption. She and Caine fall in love, and get married - before she is killed in the very next episode. This creates an extra level of closeness between the two men.

Answer: Miami

Ryan Wolfe (played by Jonathan Togo) is a later addition to the CSI team, joining them in Season 3 to replace Tim Speedle (Rory Cochrane), a popular CSI member who died because of an accident related to his poor maintenance of his gun. Wolfe, in contrast, is a policeman (rather than a forensics specialist) who takes immaculate care of his weapon.

He initially faces a somewhat hostile reception, but over time becomes a valued member of the team - and one whose name they work to clear as the main focus of the final episode.

He is one of the few whom Caine does not address by his first name, almost always calling him Mr. Wolfe.

Answer: Miami

Alexx Woods (played by Khandi Alexander) is the Miami Dade County's medical examiner for the first six seasons of the show, before she faces a psychological crisis that leads her to decide that she needs to leave the job. She was replaced by Tara Price (Megalyn Echikunwoke) for a while, until Ryan Wolfe uncovered Tara's addiction to Oxycodone, which forced her to resign. The medical examiner for the rest of the series was Tom Loma (Christian Clemenson).

Alexx, like Calleigh, always seems to me to present herself unrealistically. Surely nobody would plan to spend their day conducting autopsies (and trudging through the mud at a crime scene) wearing stiletto heels and with their hair flowing freely around their shoulders. But such is television. She is a skilled physician, and shows a strong empathy with the victims, frequently talking to them as if to comfort them after their distressing death. She also offers motherly advice to the younger members of the CSI team - so it doesn't come as much of a shock when she decides that her family, especially the son who had become a suspect in a murder investigation, need more of her time.

Answer: New York

Mac Taylor (played by Gary Sinise) is an ex-Marine who is in charge of the NYPD crime lab's day shift. He runs a tight ship, fiercely dedicated to protecting both the city and the integrity of his department - no shortcuts allowed to try to guarantee a conviction on his watch! Despite this intensity on the job, he shows a capacity for fun - aside from the fact that we periodically see him performing bass in a jazz club, he also joins in moments of recreation with team members at the end of an episode.

Mac tries to keep his team from letting their emotions get involved during their work, but he himself is seen dealing with the emotional scars of having lost his wife in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. His close friendship with his assistant is never going to veer into romance, but he does start to realise that he wants companionship in his personal life, and in the final seasons renews his friendship with Christine Whitney (Megan Dodds), sister of his partner back in the days when he was a uniformed patrolman. He proposes to her in the final episode.

Answer: New York

Stella Bonasera (played by Melina Kanakaredes) is a NYPD Detective First Grade, and the Assistant CSI supervisor for six seasons, before moving to New Orleans to be chief supervisor in their crime lab. She is multi-lingual due to her Greek-Italian background, which is also said to also lead to her having a tendency to speak her mind.

She and Mac are very close friends (with occasional suggestions that she might be interested in a romance that never eventuates), despite her dislike of his rigid military approach to investigations. When she is cut by a shard of glass that is covered with blood from a suspect who is HIV positive, he supports her through the ensuing period of waiting and worrying. In the Season 1 episode 'Officer Blue', they disagree over how to handle the extraction of a bullet (which could provide crucial evidence) that is embedded in the neck of a horse (which will almost certainly die during the operation). Stella insists they need the bullet, Mac is reluctant to kill the horse. In the end, the horse survives and the bullet turns out not to provide the incriminating evidence they had hoped for - but the case does get solved. The final scene of the episode (the one where we traditionally see some sort of personal interactions, not necessarily related to the case) sees them reconcile their differences, and finishes with this interchange:
"Stella: We haven't had a fight like that in a long time. Reminds me of the old Mac Taylor.
Mac: What old Mac Taylor is that?
Stella: The one who let his heart out of his chest every once in awhile."

Answer: New York

Danny Messer (played by Carmine Giovinazzo) is the team's trace evidence analysis expert. He first demonstrates his skill in the 'CSI: Miami' episode 'MIA/NYC NonStop', in which the New York and Miami teams discover they are investigating two separate cases that are entangled. This was essentially a pilot episode for the NY series to be established as part of the franchise. His tendency to follow his gut instincts, rather than slowing down and letting the evidence develop, has led to frequent clashes with Mac, who is frustrated that Danny's impulsiveness keeps him from being as good an investigator as he could be. In the Season 1 episode 'On the Job', his too-quick use of his gun in a dangerous situation on a crowded subway platform nearly leads to his dismissal from the force, before Mac is able to clear him of murder. Nevertheless, he reprimands Danny for improper conduct, and tells him he is no longer in line for a promotion until he redeems himself.

Danny develops a romantic relationship with teammate Lindsay Monroe (Anna Belknap), and in Season 5, when she discovers she is pregnant, is upset that she won't marry him - but it doesn't take too long to turn that decision around, and they are married. His pending fatherhood makes Danny reflect on the implications of his impetuous behavior on those around him, and he starts to become somewhat more circumspect.

Answer: New York

Lindsay Monroe (Anna Belknap) was a CSI in her native Bozeman, Montana before moving to the big city at the start of Season 2, leading to regular references to her 'hick' background. But her energy and willingness to take on whatever aspect of the job he is allocated soon make her a popular member of the New York team, especially Danny Messer, who she marries in the fifth season.

The pair first slept together at the end of the third season, in the aftermath of her testifying in the trial of the man who had killed three of her friends in a violent cafe robbery while she was a teenager. She was struggling to deliver her testimony before Danny arrived, but his presence helped her finish the task. The relationship developed, but during the fourth season there was a rough patch when Danny got involved with the mother of a boy for whose death Danny felt responsible. In the fifth season she is revealed to be pregnant - a story arc necessitated by the actress's real life second pregnancy, her first pregnancy having been covered in Season 3 by the character being in Montana.

Lindsay is one of the characters who matures the most over the course of the show, as she combines motherhood with the dangers of her job and supports Danny through multiple traumatic situations. At the end of Season 6 she shoots the killer who has Danny and their daughter cornered in their home, an act for which she is given a bravery award.

Answer: New York

Sid Hammerback, M.D. (played by Robert Joy) is the Chief Medical Examiner for the New York Police department. A former chef, he is the resident 'quirky' character - he often makes comments that cause others to do a double take, such as speculating on what it would be like to perform an autopsy on himself.

He nearly dies several times - once from an allergic reaction to a meatball gyro (from which he is saved by the timely intervention of Stella Bonasera), and once from a corpse that emitted radioactive gas.

In Season 8 he sells the patent for one of his inventions for 27 million dollars; in Season 9 we learn that he is dying of cancer, and has taken on the persona of The Guardian Angel, distributing the money to deserving strangers.