CSI Episode To Feature Main Character Entering Second Life to Find Suspect

The lead detective on the hit CBS series “CSI: NY,” Mac Taylor, is a pretty conventional television hero: like his colleagues on the two other “CSI” franchises, he uses science to follow the evidence and catch the bad guys. But in the episode for Oct. 24, Taylor, played by Gary Sinise, finds himself entering the computer-based virtual world known as Second Life, walking (and sometimes flying) around three-dimensional, animated Manhattan landmarks, recreated by a technique called machinima, and pursuing not a suspect but an avatar. Avatars and machinima? Virtual worlds? Is this really going to be on CBS, the network with a reputation as the somewhat stodgy older sibling of the broadcast-television family? It is. CBS executives, aware of their need to attract a younger generation of viewers interested in interacting with television rather than just watching it, hatched the notion of a story line that involves Second Life, the virtual world in which members create fantasy characters for themselves — known as avatars — and engage in simulated adventures in a highly stylized animated environment populated by other enthusiasts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/arts/television/04CSI.html?_r=2&ref=television&oref=slogin&oref=slogin