CSI: NY -- The Green Day episode

The CBS music department had a tall order when CSI: NY executive producer Pam Veasey said she wanted to do a music-driven, almost-entirely silent episode of the procedural hit.

The answer to all she sought came after she had started writing the special episode, and from the most unlikely artist — Green Day.

"[I] thought, 'This is it,'" she remembers "When their music would play, I could see where it fit in with the scenes I'd already written for the show." The kismet comes as a surprise to no one more than Veasey, a mom of teenage boys who was familiar with the band but far from an avid listener. "Their music fit so well with my story, and I'll be honest, I was surprised by it. It just clicked," she says. "It was a very obvious, compatible relationship. I really think Green Day spans to folks like me who are out of the normal demo."

The episode, airing tonight, went on to feature music from three Green Day albums, Green Day ¡UNO! and two forthcoming sequels. And the songs are the only thing viewers hear for roughly two thirds of the episode. "It just worked. I was so relieved," she says with a laugh.

Only the last act of the episode contains dialogue — but only out of necessity, says Veasey. They had, at one point, discussed making it entirely silent, "but we're a show that after a while, you want to know what people are thinking." "There's a point where you just can't stay in that world," she said. "I think it's really important that our villain is told [what he did]. And you can only do that with words."

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