1. Liev Schreiber on CSI
(CBS, Thursday, 9 p.m.)
You won't hear me say a word against the gone-to-do-a-play William Petersen, who has made Gil Grissom a far more subtly eccentric crime-solver than, say, Vincent D'Onofrio on Law & Order: CI. But as a temp replacement, the movie and stage actor Schreiber fits right into the small screen with his squinched gaze and his minimalist mumble-mouthiness. Working mostly opposite Marg Helgenberger, whose Kathryn gave Schreiber's Mike Keppler an appropriate fish-eye throughout most of their first episode together, Keppler proved to be an enjoyable Trenton, New Jersey, enigma, arriving in Las Vegas to a stack of phone messages from Frank with Jersey area codes. Internet chatter has it that Keppler may be gay; I say, as is true of my feeling about all non-crime-related details on CSI other than George Eads' changeable hairstyles, who cares? The guy's got the goods as a hardboiled crime-solver. I'm already looking forward to a brief but charged scene when Keppler hands the reins back over to Grissom.
