CSI Trivia
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47 free CSI trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation premiered on a Friday night in October 2000 after The Fugitive, drew 17 million viewers, and within three seasons was the most watched show on American television. It spawned Miami, NY, Cyber and Vegas, a catalogue of novels and games, a museum exhibit, and the "CSI effect" that prosecutors still complain about. Every series opens with a remixed song by The Who. These 47 questions cover the whole franchise: the Las Vegas graveyard shift under Grissom, Willows and Russell; Horatio Caine's sunglasses and one-liners in Miami; Mac Taylor's NYPD lab; Avery Ryan's cyber division; and the 2021 revival. Easy questions stick to the leads and the theme songs; the harder tier asks who co-produced the show when Touchstone pulled out, which Tarantino episode buried Nick Stokes, and which real crime-scene analysts inspired Grissom and Willows. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a TV-night round.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which network did CSI: Crime Scene Investigation air for 15 seasons?
CBS
CBS: ABC and other networks had passed on the script, yet CSI became CBS's most successful series at the time.
Q 02Who created the CSI franchise?
Anthony Zuiker
Anthony Zuiker was working as a tram operator at the Mirage in Las Vegas just a few years before CSI became TV's most-watched show.
Q 03Which blockbuster film producer's television company produced CSI?
Jerry Bruckheimer
His company produced it with CBS Productions, later CBS Paramount Television and then CBS Television Studios.
Q 04Who plays Gil Grissom on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation?
William Petersen
William Petersen left the role in 2009 to return to stage acting.
Q 05Which actress plays Catherine Willows, Grissom's second-in-command on CSI?
Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger: she left the regular cast in 2012 hoping to work on stage, yet came back as Catherine in the revival CSI: Vegas.
Q 06On CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gil Grissom is an expert in which forensic science?
Forensic entomology
Forensic entomology: Grissom's knowledge of insects runs through his cases, and after leaving the lab he ends up at sea, working to protect sharks.
Q 07What is Catherine Willows's forensic specialty on CSI?
Blood-spatter analysis
Blood-spatter analysis: Catherine had worked as an exotic dancer until a detective she befriended at the club encouraged her into police work.
Q 08Which agency does Catherine Willows join after leaving CSI's Las Vegas crime lab?
The FBI
The FBI: Catherine was demoted after a scandal in the lab and left Las Vegas for the Bureau, before returning for the 2015 finale.
Q 09Which band performs the theme songs for every series in the CSI franchise?
The Who
The Who: singer Roger Daltrey even guest-starred in a season-seven episode packed with references to the band's songs.
Q 10Which song is the theme of the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation?
Who Are You
Who Are You was partly inspired by a night its writer spent drinking with two Sex Pistols, which ended in a Soho doorway, where a policeman let him go if he could walk away.
Q 11Which song is the theme of CSI: Miami?
Won't Get Fooled Again
Won't Get Fooled Again: it kicks in right after Horatio Caine's deadpan pre-credits one-liners, a habit critics both loved and mocked.
Q 12What was the title of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's feature-length 2015 finale?
Immortality
Immortality: a bombing at Catherine's casino reunites the old team, and D.B. Russell leaves at the end to join CSI: Cyber.
Q 13Which show was CSI's Friday-night lead-in when it premiered in 2000?
The Fugitive
The pilot pulled 17 million viewers and a 5.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
Q 21Which city's crime lab does Nick Stokes leave CSI's Las Vegas team to direct?
San Diego
San Diego: Nick had been demoted when D.B. Russell took over, and he left Las Vegas in the penultimate episode to run the San Diego police lab.
Q 22On CSI, Sara Sidle majored in physics at which university?
Harvard
Harvard: Sara transferred to Las Vegas from San Francisco at Grissom's request, and she later married him.
Q 23Who plays Sara Sidle on CSI?
Jorja Fox
Jorja Fox: after divorcing Grissom, Sara rose to lab director, then gave up the job to sail off with him in the series finale.
Q 14Which Canadian company stepped in as co-producer of CSI after Disney's Touchstone pulled out?
Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis: besides co-producing, it took on distributing CSI to broadcasters around the world.
Q 15When Grissom quits CSI's crime lab in season nine, where does he fly to reunite with Sara?
Costa Rica
Costa Rica: Grissom leaves to join Sara there, and the two later marry and sail off together in the series finale.
Q 16On CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Grissom's team works which shift in the Las Vegas crime lab?
The graveyard shift
The graveyard shift: Grissom's night team handles the show's cases, and when he left in season nine, Catherine took charge of it.
Q 17On CSI, which rookie's murder on her first day costs Jim Brass his supervisor job?
Holly Gribbs
Holly Gribbs: after her death, Grissom recruited Sara Sidle to Las Vegas as her replacement.
Q 18Who plays Captain Jim Brass on CSI?
Paul Guilfoyle
Paul Guilfoyle: his Brass eventually retires from the police to focus on his daughter, and later resurfaces on CSI: Vegas.
Q 19In CSI's 2015 finale, Jim Brass works security at which casino owned by Catherine Willows?
The Eclipse
The Eclipse: Catherine inherited a share of it from her casino-owning father, and the finale opens with a bomb going off inside.
Q 20Which actor plays Nick Stokes on CSI?
George Eads
George Eads played Nick for all 15 regular seasons, but Nick is absent from the 2015 finale movie.
Q 24On CSI, Gary Dourdan's Warrick Brown struggles with which addiction?
Gambling
Gambling: Warrick grew up in Las Vegas, and he is later shot dead in his car by a corrupt undersheriff.
Q 25On CSI, Greg Sanders starts the series working in which part of the lab?
DNA
DNA: Greg later moves into the field, and in one episode he is badly beaten after stepping in to save a tourist from a gang.
Q 26On CSI, chief medical examiner Al Robbins has what physical trait?
Prosthetic legs
Prosthetic legs: Robbins lost his legs to a drunk driver, mirroring a real accident that cost actor Robert David Hall his own legs.
Q 27On CSI, trace technician David Hodges has which uncanny ability?
A nose that identifies chemicals
A nose that identifies chemicals: Hodges can name compounds by scent alone, and he even designs a murder-mystery board game starring his lab co-workers.
Q 28Which actor joined CSI in season nine as Dr. Raymond Langston?
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence Fishburne: his Langston fears he inherited his father's violence, and he ends up killing a serial killer while rescuing his ex-wife.
Q 29Who plays D.B. Russell, the botanist who runs CSI's lab from season 12?
Ted Danson
Ted Danson: his Russell ran the Las Vegas lab until the 2015 finale, when he left to join the spin-off CSI: Cyber.
Q 30On CSI, Elisabeth Shue's Julie Finlay is recruited from which city's crime lab?
Seattle
Seattle: Finlay had worked under Russell there, and she later dies after being attacked by the Gig Harbor killer.