"I thought it was this cool little show I'd found. My little secret."

How wrong he was. "In the next two weeks, CSI exploded into the greatest drama series since ER, and suddenly it was the biggest thing on TV. It plays all over the world. I even watched it in Beijing when I was making Kill Bill."

Six years later, Tarantino was persuaded to write and direct the two-hour final episode of CSI's fifth season. Yet he is only one of many stars to have pitched up on CSI, which now boasts more memorable cameos than any other show - aside from The Simpsons. Faye Dunaway and Tony Curtis (who played himself) have appeared.

Kid Rock will star in an episode in May as the murderer of a limousine driver in New York.

Other names making their debut next season include Kevin Federline, Britney Spears's estranged husband, while Roger Daltrey, whose group The Who provide CSI's theme music, will jolly up proceedings as a killer who keeps changing his appearance - from a karaokecrooning killer to a Spanish fisherman and finally to a middle-aged Afro-American woman. They are all obsessed.

Equally gripped are British celebrities from Lorraine Kelly to Naomi Campbell, and Graham Norton to Jemma Kidd. Ronnie Wood invited the show's stars to his art exhibition. Kirsty Young likes the way the directors "make the boring bits sexy", while the impressionist Jon Culshaw reckons: "It's the eternal slickness of it, which is almost comic. I'm sure there's a strong element of self-parody there."

But the queen bee of CSI fans is Liza Minnelli, who is said to have turned to the show during her separation from David Gest. Any resemblance between Gest and a CSI murder victim is, of course, purely coincidental.