Cheers: Danson's the new 'CSI' detective

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.Meet D.B. Russell -- and, yes, he is very familiar. That jaw. That hair. Those brows.

Ted Danson's new character on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" indeed looks very much like -- well -- Ted Danson. But CBS yesterday asked a room full of critics to set aside 30 years of accumulated impressions -- most collected from the world of TV comedy ("Cheers," "Becker") -- to consider the newest member of the "CSI" team.

Of Russell -- who replaces Laurence Fishburne's Ray Langston next season -- we now know this: He's a family man (wife, four kids) from Oregon who grew up under the aegis of freethinking hippie parents who traveled compulsively (in a van; what else?) and instilled in their smart son a sense of looking at the world differently.

Show runner Carol Mendelsohn said producers had asked of themselves, "What if someone comes in and has figured out how to balance life at home?" -- a radical departure for this cast of misfits and losers in the game of love. "We also wanted a Sherlock Holmes, but not a science nerd." The Left Coast counterculture upbringing, she added, gave him a way of "looking at the world from a different perspective."

Asked about his new job -- handed to him just last month -- Danson said that within the space of two weeks, "I was in Martha's Vineyard humming to myself, then went to a real autopsy in Las Vegas . . . yeah, I was surprised. Thrilled. Happy. Surprised."

The character, he says, "was described to me as kind of a Phil Jackson coming in to handle a group of incredibly bright people who were on a slippery slope" after last season's long serial-killer arc.

Meanwhile, Marg Helgenberger who has played Catherine Willows since "CSI" premiered in 2000, told critics this next season would absolutely be her last on the show.

Sitting next to her onstage, Danson then said, "We'll see about that."