Earlier this afternoon, CBS delivered a shocking blow to CSI: NY fans: Melina Kanakaredes is hanging up her fake badge after playing the role of Detective Stella Bonasera for six seasons. Movieline’s sister site Deadline reported that Sela Ward is being considered as Gary Sinise’s new partner, but not for long if Kanakaredes falls victim to the same phenomenon that’s afflicted other actors who’ve tried to leave the franchise: the CSI casting boomerang.
The Victim: Jorja Fox
The Series: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The Circumstances: After she and her CSI co-star George Eads were briefly fired from the show in 2004 (four years after debuting her role as a Las Vegas forensic scientist named Sara Sidle), CBS execs resolved the issues they had with the actors inside of a week and re-upped both contracts without giving either actor a raise. In 2007, Fox told Entertainment Weekly that she wanted a break from a weekly television commitment and returned for only a few of season eight’s episodes.
The Return: After producing a musical for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and guest-starring in Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva, CSI executive producer Carol Mendelsohn announced that Fox would be returning for the show’s tenth season “indefinitely.”
The Victim: Adam RodrÃguez
The Series: CSI: Miami
The Circumstances: For seven seasons, Rodriguez played Detective Eric Delko, a fingerprint and drug identification expert of Russian and Cuban descent, before his character was shot by a friend and replaced by Eddie Cibrian in the show’s eighth year. During that season, Rodriguez’s character announced that he was leaving the team because “life is too short.”
The Return: After wrapping a guest arc on Ugly Betty in February, the actor announced via Twitter that he was returning to the procedural (meanwhile, Cibrian was bounced).
Will Kanakaredes have better luck outside of the crime world? She has only starred in one film in the last five years — Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief — but the Daytime Emmy-nominated actress, who recently supported another successful network drama, Providence, has the best resume of the three (now, if she can just avoid that damn boomerang…).
· SHOCKER: Melina Kanakaredes Leaving ‘CSI: NY’; Will Sela Ward Replace Her? [Deadline]