The Season 7 finale of CSI left us with a cliffhanger: would the team be able to find Sara in time, or would she become yet another victim of the Miniature Killer? We finally got the answer last night, and if you don’t want to know the outcome, I suggest you stop reading right now! For those of you who have already seen the episode called “Dead Doll,” feel free to continue here.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): This episode represented a departure from the usual CSI storyline structure. Instead of an A plot and a B plot, everyone was understandably working on the Sara case. And instead of a linear timeline, the entire hour was a mix of scenes from the present as well as flashbacks showing more details of Sara’s abduction.

From the flashbacks we learned how the Natalie Davis, the Miniature Killer, first stunned Sara with a tranquilizer dart in the parking garage, then tied her up in order to transport her to hand-picked death scene. Sara became conscious while in the trunk of Natalie’s car, and managed to break free of her bonds. She even crawled through the backseat and put up a fight, but Natalie overpowered Sara again. This time, Natalie gave her spiked water to drink, which knocked Sara out long enough for the death scene to be set up.

Meanwhile, the CSIs were having no luck turning up clues until Nick spotted a note about an auto salvage yard while combing through Natalie’s apartment. Brass goes out to the yard, learns that’s where the death scene car was purchased, and finds out where the owner towed the car to.

Now the LVPD finally has a place to search, so they spread out to start covering the desert. Grissom and Catherine find some markers and even come across a dead body, but it’s not Sara. Later, when Nick and Sofia are driving along the road, Nick sees something reflecting sunlight. It turns out to be the rear view mirror from the car that Sara was trapped in. Apparently she had enough sense to carry that around with her.

Anyway, they find Sara collapsed in the middle of the desert with no pulse. Paramedics arrive to start an IV, an air ambulance comes to take her to the hospital, and Grissom gets there in time to accompany Sara for the ride. A few minutes later, Sara opens her eyes, so we know that she survives — at least for the time being.

My Reaction: I had mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I thought that there were some really tense moments here that made for good television. The last 10 minutes of the ep in particular were riveting, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, so there were indeed parts that were well done.

But on the other hand, I was kind of disappointed to see that 99 percent of this episode consisted of an extended search party. We were already left with a cliffhanger for three months… was it really necessary to prolong the waiting in this episode as well? Yeah, we know that Sara survives, but I thought we were entitled to see more than just her eyes opening a quarter of an inch at the end of the ep. That should have happened by the three-quarter mark at the very latest so we could get some follow-up right away.

In addition, the middle of the ep kind of felt like it was being dragged out on purpose. What was up with all the slo-mo and music-filled montages? Couldn’t the writers think of anything else to do with that screentime?

I also felt that the conclusion of this episode was just far too similar to the “Grave Danger” ep where Nick was saved from being buried alive. If the writers really wanted to take a chance, they would have let Sara die. I mean, what the hell is the meaning of the title if nobody in this ep died??

Well, I didn’t stick around to watch the previews for next week (I never do), but I do hope that ep will address some of the things I brought up here today.