"And of course, Ausiello is vague...says it 'could be Nick". Seriously? With Catherine leaving or only being around part of next season I would hate to find out Nick is being killed off! "

"Ecklie, Brass...two plauseible ideas I'd completely forgotten about..the Ecklie thing really does make sense, but I really hope not, I love to hate him and even though he only shows up every few episodes, it wouldn't be quite the same without him...actually, he is scheduled to be in the finale...interesting.

I know LF was hired to replace WP, but on an average episode he has way more screentime than Grissom did anyway. You know, I don't think you can really have someone like Grissom leave and then give all his screentime and then some to a character that the audience has never seen before and then expect the majority of viewers to like him. I've got nothing against the actor, but I never really warmed up to Ray's character because he always seemed slightly false to me, almost like the writers were trying too hard to make him like Grissom, when I don't think someone like Grissom can be properly replaced. Also, probably one of the main reasons they focus so much on him is because of the actor's films and fame so they can just use him to get more viewers, which I don't think is fair on the other actors who have been there for years. I think that a new character would've been fine, but they maybe should've started off with him as having less screentime and focused more heavily on Catherine, Nick, Greg, and maybe some of the labrats, and built up Ray more over time.

Also, sorry, for talking so long about that and kind of deviating from the topic :P"

"I disagree with the time thing. If they would have had a few episodes, 2 or 3, of just the team dealing with the adjustments and then brought in a new character and let him develop through the rest of the season, the transistion would've been smoother. There was no need to go so slam bam like they did. I think they could've even have finished out the rest of season 9 without a new character and been just fine. The transistion was forced rather than natural. The storyline could've been handled much better and with much more finesse. I still think the producers and writers panicked and reacted to that panic rather than looking at things proactively and handling things smoothly."