CSI gets all sexed up

Detective Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) and her sidekick Detective Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) - making science sexy.

CSI: New York - until now, the poor cousin of the CSI franchise - has been sexed up.

There's less dirty back-alley Big Apple, and more glam in the new series of the show. So far there's been a guy climbing the Empire State Building, falling from the 35th floor, and his brain popping out on to the pavement. Then the male fashion designer who was found dead wearing a diamond-studded bra. And detectives visiting a "cuddles club". Whatever next?

But hey, this is the crazy New York the world knows.

However, Melina Kanakaredes, who plays Detective Stella Bonasera, simply puts the new-look show down to progress.

"Not to say the first season wasn't wonderful, but that's the joy of television - you still grow and you become stronger and better and keep moving in a direction that moves things forward, raises the bar, and keeps entertaining people."

The person responsible for the show's much slicker and energetic appearance is CBS network boss, Leslie Moonves.

Kanakaredes says, "It's not really an object of wanting to outdo the others in the [CSI] family, but he [Moonves] wanted to see the New York he lives in. And he put his money where his mouth is, and he supported us and said, 'Here's a bunch of money'."

So they knocked down the old sets and built a new city. "New York is one of our lead characters, it's an integral part of our show, and the New York that we show has to emulate the stories we tell. So yes, we are getting into the higher end of story lines, of fashion, a wealthier New York, and yet we've just finished doing an episode in Washington Heights where they are more like working-class people.

"But that's the beauty of New York. You do have a true gradient level of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. It's wonderful and you get that feel in a nine-mile long, three-mile wide little island," she laughs.

"When I first moved to New York," she says, "I had an apartment over the trash room. But when I got my first job it was like, 'Wow, I get to move up in the world'. And it's the same thing for our show. It looks better, the material is better, and we look better."

Stella sure does. This series, she is hot. Her tops are noticeably lower cut, her curly locks have even more body, and she's got a great glow about her.

Kanakaredes laughs off the sexy Stella remark and instead focuses on her character's "accessibility". She's right. She's also focused, happy in her work and a go-to person for other members of her team.

"I want someone, when they watch the show to understand her," says Kanakaredes. "I think sometimes because they are scientists and they're so intelligent, so uber-sophisticated at their jobs, that we as viewers - you know, I'm a viewer too, I'm a fan of television - want to feel like we're connected to these people, and that we care about them."

Stella is flippant, too. When she's looking at the guy who fell from the Empire State her response is: "This is a no brainer." So it's a cheesy line, but someone had to say it. Her co-star, Gary Sinise, who plays the more serious and fatherly Detective Mac Taylor certainly wouldn't.

"She has a delicious sense of humour and I think you need some levity in the job you do," she says. "And when I did research, going to crime scenes with these investigators, it was gruesome, horrific stuff. And as a person who does this stuff - just like in our offices or your offices - they get comfortable in their job and they need to have some humour about what they're doing otherwise it will be so depressing.

"So I love the fact she has a tongue-in-cheek, dry sense of humour, and it provides a reality to who she is, as well as complexity. She goes full circle."

Research is an important part of playing a role like Stella, and although she didn't mind visiting crime scenes and seeing dead bodies, Kanakaredes prefers acting as a day job.

"I don't mind pretending," she laughs. "It was tough though, and I have a lot of respect for the people who do it. They're not doing it for the dead person, they're doing it for the people who are left behind and it's so important to find the truth.

"Hopefully [through these shows] science has not only been made sexy, but also vital in solving cases, and bringing finality and closure to a very horrible thing for a victim's family, and the people left behind. And the people who do this job, the Stellas and the Macs of this world, are obsessed with finding the truth."

* CSI: New York, Wednesday, 8.30pm, TV3