By CRAIG TOMASHOFF and LISA CHAMBERS Photograph by JIM WRIGHT

Las Vegas. Sin City. The night was black as an oil patch left by a perp’s getaway car, but the neon lights of the Strip cast a glow WILLIAM on the town like a rainbow on a bender. That’s when we saw them…Grissom and Sidle, two CSIs who had no business being in a bedroom PETERSEN together. The dame wore a robe, like she’d just and stepped out of the shower. And Grissom…her boss…lay on the bed, talking about death. JORJA Turns out relationships that happen in Vegas don’t always stay in Vegas. Here’s the evidence: FOX In the last scene of CSI’s May season finale, () and tell all about () shocked viewers with their roman- tic rendezvous. Fan Web sites went nuts. CSI’S TV GUIDE got lots of letters—some people liked the relationship; others wanted to send biggest the story line on a slow boat to China. We had to know: What were the producers thinking? mystery yet Exec producer Carol Mendelsohn came clean. This promises to be the most personal season of CSI yet. Good thing, too, since it’s now going up against TV’s sudsiest smash, Grey’s Anatomy. “The bones of Season 7 will be the toll the job has on our CSIs,” she says. “The sin in Sin City is beginning to wear on them.” Next, we talked to exec producer Naren Shankar: “We’re not turning into a soap opera but we’re going to see their anger with the world, and them reaching out to each other.” Then they really sang like canaries: Turns out all the CSIs will get roughed up this sea- son, in one way or another.

TV GUIDE 27