It’s a Mac-attack for 100th ‘CSI: NY’
The difference between New Yorkers and tourists crystallizes as the crew from “CSI: NY” tries to divert pedestrians while shooting the 100th episode, which airs at 10 p. m. Wednesday.
Those whose wallets always hold MetroCards (prepaid fares for subways) ignore some kid with a clipboard telling them to not walk on a certain block. They just muscle through, never breaking stride or interrupting cell phone conversations.
The tourists, however, are more obedient. They not only listen but brandish their cell phones — a colorful array of metal glinting in the fall sun — as they snap photos of Gary Sinise and Julia Ormond, who is beginning a three-week arc on the CBS hit.
In the shadow of the Empire State Building — always a tourist attraction, but also an office building teeming with New Yorkers who have just so much time for just so much nonsense — the crew works. The show is produced in Los Angeles, but they head east for a few times each year for exterior shots.
This 100th plot offers rich possibilities: A serial killer is murdering people named Mac Taylor, same name as Sinise’s character. While researching the episode, the show’s writers found 39 Mac Taylors (and variations thereof) in the New York metro area
Chris Daughtry (“American Idol,” making his acting debut), Rumer Willis (daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore) and Scott Wolf (“Everwood”) play characters named Mac Taylor. Rapper Nelly and retired NFL player Marshall Faulk also appear.
In the script, the 39 sharing a version of the name was narrowed to 23 Mac Taylors, 15 of whom will be featured on the show. The two killed early in the episode are murdered in different ways, says writer/executive producer Pam Veasey. .
After running through a scene repeatedly, Sinise steals a few minutes to relax. People start crowding around him, but his makeup artist, a tough-looking guy, doubles as a bodyguard. He plants his body between Sinise and those waving cell phones with cameras.
“I’m settled into the idea of doing a series now,” Sinise says, who has been on board since the series premiered in 2004. “I’m getting used to one character, and I didn’t think that far ahead. I knew it was part of a successful franchise, and the other two were doing so well, but I had no idea if this would succeed.”
Sinise enjoys playing Taylor because the ethical cop is so different from some other roles he’s assumed.
“I played some bad guys, some less than honorable people,” Sinise says. “What I like about Mac is that he’s a very straight shooter. He’s honorable. He just wants to do what’s right.”
This is the first day on the job for Ormond and she doesn’t know where this could lead.
“I have no idea if I will be killed or run over by a bus,” Ormond says of her character. “I don’t even know which way we are going. This is the first time I have done something where I didn’t see the script first.”
Ormond says she took such a chance “because it is such an established series.”
It’s up to her character to make Mac Taylor take this threat seriously. The cops deduce that the killer, though intent on obliterating Mac Taylors, does not know what the detective looks like, so he just goes on a killing spree.
“CSI,” a cottage industry for CBS, was “already a strong franchise” when Veasey launched the New York version, she says. She acknowledges she was worried about this being the third show. Over the 100 episodes, they have whacked victims by such imaginative means as stabbing by swordfish, trampling by crowd and kissing by poisonous lipstick.
“This makes you very aware of accidental death,” she says.
Especially if your name is Mac Taylor.
On the cover: Julia Ormond and Gary Sinise.
