Ever Taylor Swift fans tend to forget her William Peterson.
CSI became a full-blown franchise in the years that followed, attracting guest directors like Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie and receiving multiple spin-offs. The most successful of these was CSI: Miami, which gave David Caruso the chance to take off his sunglasses dramatically for ten seasons before retiring from acting. It also spawned the short-lived CSI: Cyber and multiple video games before the franchise seemed to end in 2015. In 2022, it came back with CSI: Vegas, which has run for two seasons thus far.
Just like with Law & Order, many up-and-coming stars were featured on CSI early in their careers. The likes of Michael B. Jordan, Shailene Woodley and Channing Tatum popped up in various episodes of the CSI saga - which had many crossover episodes - and in 2009, singer Taylor Swift made her acting debut on the show. Swift was already having a great year, thanks to the success of her second album Fearless, which featured hits like "You Belong With Me." She played a teenager named Haley, with the unusual format of the episode seeing the story span a year. It follows Nick (George Eads, MacGyver) as investigates the events leading up to Haley's death. The two had formed a friendship over a year as he was called to the motel she lived at to look into different crimes.
Despite being Swift's first real acting role, she acquits herself well in CSI's "Turn, Turn, Turn." The episode charts Haley's arguments with her mother - who owns the hotel - and dealing with online bullying, and how she became a goth to deal with the pain. It turns out the death of The Giver - Haley was due to an argument with her mother Nicole, who accidentally stabbed her following a fight about Haley's behavior and reaction to her birth mother Tanya's death following an overdose. Nick also discovers Haley's mother killed Tanya too, as the latter accidentally caused the death of Nicole's infant daughter and gave up Haley to her and her husband as a form of penance years before.
As the above implies, CSI's "Turn, Turn, Turn" is a dark outing with an unhappy ending for all involved. Even Nick is left mourning the senseless demise of Taylor Swift's Haley since Nicole left her to die because she was "in shock" after the stabbing. "Turn, Turn, Turn" also featured a remix of Swift's song "You're Not Sorry," which was used to good effect during the episode.