Why Patricia Arquette And Ted Danson's CSI: Cyber Was Canceled

With its macabre one-liners, revolving door of guest stars, and endless imagined homicides, "CSI" is one of the most recognizable network TV franchises of all time. Yet, despite well over a decade of success and extensive rerun appeal, the Anthony Zuiker-created property actually went off the air for a five year period. In 2016, the last "CSI" show that was still going, "CSI: Cyber," bowed out after just two seasons, and the TV world of the crime saga that began at the turn of the millennium went temporarily dark.

Like so many procedurals before it, "CSI" did eventually come back, offering up the Paula Newsome and Matt Lauria-led "CSI: Vegas" in 2021. That series returned to the show's trend of focusing on a different city (past hits have included "CSI: New York" and the infamously punny "CSI: Miami"), but it wasn't enough to save it. "Vegas" was canceled in 2024 after three seasons, marking a second end to the long-running franchise. But what exactly happened the first time around? It doesn't take a special agent to solve this case.

"CSI: Cyber" is an admittedly forgettable chapter in franchise history, in part because its non-location-oriented title makes the series feel less distinctive than its predecessors. The show about a Washington, D.C. based cyber crimes division of the FBI actually has a weirdly specific premise for a CBS procedural, as it follows a behavioral psychologist who forms a team of government-approved hackers with criminal records and lets them off the hook if they help her catch bad people on the internet. So far, it makes sense that "CSI: Cyber" might not have connected with viewers, although one other factor made the show decidedly memorable: the cast.

The short-lived series starred Patricia Arquette, who had previously been the queen of the bad-but-great primetime detective drama (they really don't make shows like "Medium" anymore) before becoming a newly-minted Oscar winner in 2015 thanks to her turn in Richard Linklater's beloved "Boyhood." As if Arquette, who would go on to earn praise post-"CSI" thanks to her work on celebrated shows like "Severance" and "The Act," wasn't enough of a draw, season 2 also recruited the legendary Ted Danson to play a Sherlock Holmes type. Alas, though the series had an IP advantage and a starry ensemble (James Van Der Beek, Hayley Kiyoko, Michael Irby, and McKenna Grace all had key roles), "CSI: Cyber" was no match for the audience-stealing program to end all audience-stealers: Sunday Night Football.

To be clear, "CSI: Cyber" didn't come to a close after 31 episodes because NFL games were airing on a competing network, but because they were airing on CBS — resulting in the bumping of "Cyber" when games ran long or the football schedule otherwise took precedence (per Deadline). Game days made the show's new episodes air much later at night, and that likely stopped viewers with a limited viewing window — or early bedtimes — from tuning in consistently. Still, the series' ratings remained fairly stable throughout its second season; they just weren't high enough to compare to other CBS hits at the time.

In the end, as noted by Deadline, "CBS: Cyber" was canceled as a result of low ratings, a problem that surely wasn't helped by scheduling issues and an inconsistent time slot. It also didn't help that, by most accounts, the show wasn't good. Only roughly one-third of critics and audiences featured on Rotten Tomatoes reported liking the series, leaving it with a pretty abysmal 34% critical score. (Audiences were 1% more generous at 35%.) Vulture's Margaret Lyons called the show a "useless chore," referencing an outlandish pilot plot related to babies being stolen on baby monitors and auctioned off online. Several other critics also mentioned the baby plot, and while the second season was clearly designed to revamp some of what didn't work with the first, "CSI: Cyber" was ultimately deemed a failed experiment from a lagging franchise that already strained credulity at every turn.

The clearest silver lining of the show's cancellation came for Danson, who could've spent the next several years trapped on post-football CBS, talking about how scary the internet is. Instead, he kicked off a second career renaissance when he began starring as quirky celestial being Michael in NBC's acclaimed series "The Good Place" just three months after "CSI: Cyber" signed off. It's the perfect crime: a role so great in a show so fantastic that it made just about everyone forget "CSI: Cyber" even existed.