In Hollywood, things never happen in a vacuum. If one studio has a thriller involving time travel, chances are another will have one ready shortly. To wit: Those of you horrified by the recent episode of Law and Order, in which a SL-like virtual world played a major role, might be equally frightened by this news: CSI: NY will feature its own whodunnit, but this time it really is Second Life that's involved.

Unlike the Law and Order episode, this sounds like it might approach SL with a little more respect. In a nutshell, ace investigator Mac Taylor is called upon to track down the killer of 'the Paris Hilton of Second Life', who has taken over the victim's avatar and assumed her identity. More intriguing than the plot, however, is CSI creator Anthony Zuiker's ideas on pushing viewer involvement further, with the help of the Electric Sheep Company.

There will be follow-up interactivity for viewers to pursue, including visiting NBC's website to try to guess the murderer's identity -- which will remain unknown until the resolution of this episode's cliffhanger, which will be in February of 2008. One of the best things about the embedded clip from that episode is the rundown of SL given by a younger member of the CSI team, talking about the things you can do in SL. When one of his colleagues asks 'Why?', he replies in an isn't-it-obvious-voice: 'It's ... fun?'

For full details, visit the New York Times story on this episode, which airs Oct. 24th. Side note: Mr. Zuiker will be giving the keynote speech at this year's Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose. It's not too late to register!

(Thanks, John!)