Allen MacDonald has been with CSI since the show's third season. He's climbed the ranks from writers' assistant to staff writer and has had a hand in some of the most significant episodes of the last few seasons, including "Dead Doll" and Goodbye and Good Luck", which saw the exit of the first regular character to leave the show, Sara Sidle. Though busy at work for an episode for the show's eighth season following the hundred day WGA strike, MacDonald took the time to discuss the current season and his career at CSI with CSI Files.
CSI Files: What's it like being back at work? Does the schedule feel accelerated?
Allen MacDonald: It definitely does feel accelerated. As soon as we got back, we had to jump into the fire as they say, and found out immediately that we were going to do six more episodes and that we were going to have to go into production very quickly.
CSI Files: You're working on an episode right now. Can you tease it a little?
MacDonald: I'm actually working on an episode with Naren Shankar and Dustin Lee Abraham, bringing back Method Man, who plays a character named Drops. I'm helping out with this episode--it's Dustin's deal. That character is a Dustin Lee Abraham creation. I've been brought on to help. A lot of these episodes that we're doing now we're kind of working together on because it moves things along a little quicker.
CSI Files: Were these episodes you're working on now planned before the strike happened, or have they been developed since?
MacDonald: The first two were already in the development phase before the strike began, and of course, everything just stopped because of the strike. When we went back some work had been completed on those episodes in the story conception phase.
CSI Files: Do you think, aside from the season being several episodes short of a normal season, the strike will change or delay any planned storylines?
MacDonald: The answer is yes. We were going to do 24 episodes this year, and we're going to end up doing 17--so we'll have seven fewer episodes. So definitely there were things we were going to do that have been scrapped or put on hold. Carol Mendelsohn is looking at [the rest of] this season as a mini-season--season 8.5. These six episodes will be a mini season, kind of like The Sopranos last season: the sixth season was like 20 episodes, but they aired 12 and then they waited and they aired the last eight later.
CSI Files: How many more scripts will you be doing personally after this one?
MacDonald: I think this is it for me. Anything can change, but I did "Dead Doll" with Dustin and Naren and I worked on Goodbye and Good Luck" , which was Jorja Fox's last episode. Those were two pretty cool assignments to get to be involved in! I had a pretty good season, so I think that after this point I'll be done until next year.
CSI Files: You've been involved in writing a lot of the episodes with Sara, like "The Unusual Suspects" and "Empty Eyes" where Sara's disillusionment with her job really started and began to take its toll. How much advance planning went into that arc? How much warning did you have that Jorja Fox was planning to leave the show?
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He's funnier than he thinks then, they were good episodes with a bit of humour in them, although I too prefer the darker stuff. He's actually written on some of my favourite episodes, and he sounds very sincere, if that's the right word, and serious about the episodes and characters. I like that. 
very sharp guy, and of course I zeroed in on the GSR part & how they 'love each other' and are "soul mates" well duh
and how the romance has surivived, and Sara too.. all the other epsides he spoke of were riveting..and things I never knew! nice read
