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From the Hollywood Reporter

Laurence Fishburne joining ‘CSI’

Laurence Fishburne has officially come on board “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” succeeding William Petersen on the CBS crime drama.

Fishburne, who will first appear in the ninth episode of the show’s upcoming ninth season, will play a former pathologist who is now working as an itinerant college lecturer, teaching a course in criminalistics. His focus is on understanding criminal behavior, how and why people commit acts of violence — which happen to be tendencies he disturbingly sees within himself.

In the course of a murder investigation, he comes into contact with the CSI team and ultimately joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level-1 CSI.

“This has been months in the making,” said “CSI” executive producer Carol Mendelsohn. “We have been talking about the character we wanted to create and pursuing our dream casting, which is Laurence Fishburne.”

Exec producer Naren Shankar added that Fishburne and Petersen will appear together in two episodes. Their characters “will be involved in a case together in Episodes 9 and 10,” he said. “(Petersen’s character, Gil) will definitely have an opinion on who this guy is. The idea is to see a lot of Billy and Laurence together.”

Fishburne’s character does not yet have a name but is being referred to simply as “the professor.” Asked how Petersen’s character will depart the series, Mendelsohn said only: “We’re not going to tell you how he’s leaving.”

Read the full article here.

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