‘CSI: Vegas’ Boss Says There Are ‘Great Ideas’ for All the Characters in Season 2

Now that we know that there will be a second season of CSI: Vegas, we can start looking ahead (even if it’s not coming for close to a year).

Season 1 was 10 episodes, with cases-of-the-week as well as an investigation that kicked off in the premiere and was wrapped up in the finale, just in time to introduce a new mystery. That limited time did also have some effect on the stories they could tell when it came to the characters as they brought back familiar faces (like William Petersen’s Gil Grissom and Jorja Fox’s Sara Sidle) and introduced a new team (led by Paula Newsome’s Maxine Roby).

“I will say there’s a lot more story to tell with all these folks that we’re excited to dig into in Season 2,” showrunner Jason Tracey tells TV Insider. “I wouldn’t want to spoil too much too soon, but there were great ideas for everybody that you can’t get to because time is finite. And I’m excited to get back into the room with writers.”

But that won’t necessarily include bringing head medical examiner Hugo Ramirez (Mel Rodriguez) out of the morgue, “a fascinating place,” the showrunner says. “I did a morgue pilot once upon a time and did a lot of research down there. The folks that do that job, it’s an incredible sacrifice and it’s a calling. Those characters are fascinating.” However, he does hope to “populate that world more fully and tell more stories down there.”

A story they did tell in those 10 episodes was one that involved Maxine being suspended due to her work to help the season-long investigation, and that factored into what they wanted to do with Anson Wix (Jamie McShane), who’d been the one to frame David Hodges (Wallace Langham) for evidence tampering. “Paula and I have had so much fun working on this character and I’ve learned a ton from her from our earliest conversations,” Tracey shares. “I told her, it won’t feel real if the stakes don’t rise to that level of, will she be able to ride this out? Can she weather the storm? It makes the villain more formidable. It makes the victory more sweet, if she can suffer a real setback there in [Episodes] 7 and 8 where she’s suspended from the lab.

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“And I think it’s a sweet moment when she comes back and asks for the undersheriff to get out of her chair,” he continued. “That’s where we want to see her because Paula is fantastic. And Max just feels like the right person to lead a new chapter of the lab.”

CSI: Vegas, Season 2, TBA, CBS