Taylor Swift appears in an engrossing 'CSI' investigation

Stuntcasting can be a dangerous thing.

The appearance of music superstar Taylor Swift in Thursday’s episode of “CSI” (8 p.m., WBBM-Ch. 2) certainly gives CBS something to promote, but we’ve all seen examples of non-actors, or even very famous guest actors, messing up otherwise good shows.

That’s not the case in Thursday’s episode, which would have been engrossing with or without Swift. The singer-songwriter, who plays a teen living at a seedy motel, acquits herself well. But she’s not really the main attraction.

The “CSI” episodes I enjoy most do two things well: keep me guessing about who did what to whom until the end and make things matter emotionally to the characters. I don’t care as much about the technology used to solve crimes as I do about the stories crime tells us about the darker recesses of the human heart and mind.

Thursday’s excellent episode is a showcase for George Eads, who plays crime-scene investigator Nick Stokes. In the episode, Nick encounters Swift’s character every time he responds to a crime scene at the low-budget motel her father manages. Several crimes are solved in the episode, and there are many clever red herrings and feints before the viewer realizes what’s going on. And Eads does a subtle job of conveying his quiet concern for the residents of the downmarket motel.

Perhaps it’s strangeâ€"or perhaps it’s wiseâ€"that we don’t see much of Laurence Fishburne, who plays a new “CSI” character named Ray Langston. Though Langston was authoritative and compelling in the two earlier episodes in which the character was introduced, those episodes also marked the departure of Gil Grissom (William Petersen) from the show. Langston’s story took the back seat to Grissom’s departure, which was the right approach.

In subsequent weeks, however, Fishburne has seemed more tentative. Of course, Langston is still finding out how he fits in with the rest of the crime-solving team. But there’s more to it than that. It doesn’t seem as though Fishburne has established a rhythm or a comfort level on the show yet.

Of course the pace on a TV drama is far different from the pace of a feature film; that may account for his tentativeness. Fishburne’s appearances in Thursday’s episode, however, are effective, possibly because they mostly occur in two-person scenes.

The moment from Thursday’s episode that stayed in my mind longest, however, didn’t involve one of the show’s main cast members. In a sensitively written and acted moment in Thursday’s episode, a man views the body of a family member, and his speech reminds us that the legacy of all these dead bodies is grief.

What do you think of Fishburne/Langston on “CSI”?  Leave your comments below.

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