But if they were really obssesed with bringing in someone then I guess they best way would've been to bring in a character with the expertise of Gil and just have him take over as supervisor. I think that's one of the reasons Ray's character has been so...conflicted. Sela's replacement of Melina in NY has been much better handled and I think that one of the reasons is that she replaced both Melina and Stella. Laurence replaced William but not Grissom and it's been kind of a mess IMO.
I think the problem that faced the powers that be with "CSI" is that Melina's character on the New York spin-off was still second to Gary's (much as Marg's was to Billy's). Had Marg been the one to leave first, I suspect they would've replaced her with someone similarly empowered (as they did with Sela's character). The problem was, Billy was the one to leave, so now you have to replace a beloved team leader, played by an actor who always wanted the focus to be on the team. With him leaving, it left them in a real conundrum, because I'm sure there would have been complaints -- as there were, and are -- about not moving Catherine up to Grissom's position, but rather replacing Grissom with a newbie.
I actually liked the way they introduced Ray, and wish they would've kept him that way, rather than (apparently) fast-tracking him into the leadership role. I liked the fact that he was learning, because it took us back to those early seasons of "CSI" where part of the focus was on enabling us in the audience to learn along with the CSIs. But the writers never seem to have settled on who Ray really is. Is he the intellectual student, whom I liked best? Or is he the super-sleuth who has to solve everything?
My guess is that the powers that be fear having a main character perceived as "weak" (which I did not, by the way). So it's almost like they felt they had to overcompensate by turning Fishburne's character into a "Super Ray" who can do it all. When Petersen left, I knew it would leave a big hole, and initially I thought they had it worked out pretty well. But since then, there have been some major missteps, IMO, that show they really didn't have it figured out in terms of filling that void.
One show that pulled this off very well is "Criminal Minds" (filling Mandy Patinkin's abrupt departure with Joe Mantegna). The ratings seem to be holding their own since that casting change, and while I don't follow the show closely, I'm also not seeing the kinds of complaints that we're seeing here.
