Tonight, on a Very Special Episode ™ of CSI ™, Nick Stokes tries to save a little girl who everyone else is convinced has already been killed, but… he can hear her voice in his head, leading him from clue to clue.

Gah. I hate Very Special Episodes. I like the character of Nick well enough, but c’mon. First the two-hour season finale, now this. Are they setting him up for a write-out, or did George Eads just work this kind of thing into his contract back when he was threatening to quit the show a couple of years back? Feh.

Ah: It pays to Google, my friends.

The plot of this episode was modified at the last moment to accomodate for a sudden change in William Petersen’s availability — originally, Gil Grissom was going to be the CSI convinced that the younger daughter was still alive. (Source)

Fair enough, then… but still. Can we get back to our regularly scheduled mayhem next week, please?