Hollywood Legend Quentin Tarantino Directed Two Of CSI’s Best Episodes

Quentin Tarantino built his career on an encyclopedic knowledge of film and television, blending high and low influences into something unmistakably his own, so it should come as little surprise that he brought his signature style to television by directing two episodes of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” While directing his two-part martial arts epic “Kill Bill” in Beijing, Tarantino needed a way to unwind after long workweeks. Like many viewers, that escape was “CSI,” which he watched every Sunday evening on what he described as the Adrenaline Channel. In an interview with Today, Tarantino explains the peculiar decision to take time away from his busy film career to direct an episode of the CBS procedural because he’s “fascinated by the whole forensic thing.”

Tarantino has said that William Petersen’s Gil Grissom is “the best detective to come along since Columbo,” and word of that praise quickly reached the show’s creative team. “Word spread like wildfire that Quentin Tarantino was watching, and we all took such pride in that,” says executive producer and writer Carol Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn said the team eventually wondered why they should not ask Tarantino to write and direct an episode himself

Tarantino accepted the offer and pitched a story idea that became the Season 5 finale, “Grave Danger,” in which Nick Stokes (George Eads) is kidnapped and buried alive while Grissom is taunted by a villain played by John Saxon. Embracing the format, Tarantino said he wanted the episode to feel “in some way like a ‘CSI’ movie.” Tarantino said his favorite episodes involved Grissom matching wits with another mastermind, and “Grave Danger” pushed that idea to an extreme. “I needed a big sequence in the middle with him and Grissom facing each other like (Robert) DeNiro and (Al) Pacino in the middle of ‘Heat.'” Tarantino accomplished this by ending Part 1 with Saxon’s character blowing himself up to avoid capture.

Tarantino’s trademark black humor is present throughout the episode, but the only real issue arose from a hallucination sequence that was so gory he filmed it in black and white to avoid network concerns.” The episode has gone on to be considered one of the very best of the show’s long run, which ended in 2015 and returned for a legacy sequel in “CSI: Vegas” in 2021.

Unlike directors who see film and television as competing mediums, Tarantino has long shown interest in working in both. In the decades since directing “Grave Danger,” Tarantino has come close to launching his own television projects, though none have materialized. His film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” starred Leonardo DiCaprio as a TV actor struggling to maintain the spotlight after the conclusion of his Western serial “Bounty Law.” As a part of his process for bringing the 1960’s back to life for the film, Tarantino wrote five episodes of “Bounty Law” all on his own, which he toyed with turning into an actual TV show in the wake of the film’s success.

But his closest call with returning to television involves another famous TV lawman: Timothy Olyphant’s Rayland Givens on the FX series “Justified.” In an interview with “Happy Sad Confused,” He told the story of how he and Tarantino were sharing margaritas during “Once Upon a Time…” when Olyphant let slip that they were preparing to bring the character back for a miniseries, “Justified: City Primeval.” Tarantino asked if he could direct the show, and Olyphant joked he would “put in a good word.”

Tarantino read the scripts and expressed interest in directing the fourth and seventh episodes, but then his wife became pregnant with their second baby. Olyphant says Tarantino couldn’t leave their home in Israel while his wife was about to give birth, and he dropped out of directing the show. Fatherhood ultimately kept Tarantino at home, though it likely left him with plenty of time to keep watching “CSI.”