‘CSI’ season 14: George Eads to take leave, miss 300th episode after conflict with writer

The latest update from the set of “CSI” is not a happy one. Instead, it’s rather sad to hear about, and it makes you wonder what happened for it to get to this point.

In news first reported by THR, actor George Eads, who has played the Nick Stokes characters on CBS’ longest-running drama series since its premiere back in 2000, has been placed on leave for the foreseeable future after getting into what is being called a “heated exchange” with a pregnant member of the show’s writing staff. It is not clear what sparked the exchange, or what caused the argument to eventually settle down.

The website claims that Eads will be around for the first three episodes of the season, but then disappear as Marg Helgenberger’s returning character of Catherine proclaims that the character has been sent off for special training at Quantico. He will be gone for the show’s 300th episode, which is surely a shame to all parties involved.

CBS has issued a comment on the situation, telling the website the following about their plans to have him back on the show eventually:

“George Eads will not appear in several episodes during the first half of the season. We look forward to him returning to CSI very soon.”

Regardless of the details, this is a pretty sad situation, and just the latest behind-the-scenes drama for a CBS procedural. Over the course of the past year we’ve already seen Cote de Pablo’s stunning exit from CBS, and also the Jennifer Esposito – “Blue Bloods” conflict that led to the actress blasting the network for not allowing her to work when she claims that she was ready to do so. Clearly, though, all of these situations were very different from each other.

Stay tuned; we will have more on this story soon.

Photo: CBS