Peyton Driscoll

Peyton Driscoll is a fictional character on the television series CSI: NY. She is portrayed by Claire Forlani.

Fictional Character Biography
Dr. Peyton Driscoll serves as one of the medical examiners for the New York Police Department. She is originally from London, England. Though she first appears on screen in episode 301 (People With Money), it is indicated that she is returning to her job at the New York City morgue after spending several years teaching at a university. She has been a colleague of both Doctors Sid Hammerback and Sheldon Hawkes for a number of years and considers herself "a little protective"(episode 307, "Murder Sings the Blues").

Peyton is currently romantically involved with CSI lead investigator Mac Taylor. The difficulty they face in maintaining their relationship while remaining professional on the job has been demonstrated many times. Plans for dinners and time together are constantly being interrupted by the demands of their jobs (episodes 301, "People With Money," 316, "Heart of Glass," et al); on Mac's birthday, the workload is such that Peyton's birthday party for him is reduced to her buying him a cupcake from one of the office vending machines and lighting a candle atop it.

Mac initially wishes to keep their relationship a secret, despite Peyton's desire to be more open about it. She is deeply hurt when he yanks her hand away from his face when he sees Stella approaching, and when he accidentally calls her "Claire," the name of his deceased wife (episode 311, "Raising Shane"), she walks away from him, seemingly for good. Mac reconciles with her shortly after, acknowledging that while he may still be a bit gun shy about their relationship, he wants to make it work (episode 312, "Silent Night"). By episode 316 ("Heart of Glass"), they have revealed their romantic connections to their colleagues, and no one has expressed any objections.

Peyton is hurt, though not seriously, when she is slammed against the coroner's van by two men outside the lab, who then steal the body of a man that the MEs had just retrieved from a crime scene. The body is later fished out of the Hudson River, still in the body bag. To Peyton's shock, the man is alive, though in a permanent vegetative state. She is distressed about how she could have pronounced the man dead in the first place, but is reassured, by Mac, that her pronouncement was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances; it is eventually determined that the victim had been intentionally placed in a state of hibernation by a combination of chemicals administered to him. (episode 320, "What Schemes May Come").

When Mac is accused of fatally pushing kidnap/murder suspect Clay Dobson off a roof, Peyton stands firmly beside him throughout his ordeal. She counsels him to visit jailed former Detective Dean Truby (Dobson's original arresting officer) to reinforce the point that Taylor was right in arresting Truby (episode 323, "...Comes Around").

In the season 3 finale, "Snow Day", Peyton announces to Mac that she is taking a trip to London for 10 days to attend a medical examiners' conference. She invites him to accompany her, citing that he has not taken a vacation day in years. At first, Mac is uncertain if he wants to go, but at the end of the episode, he informs Stella and Flack that he is going to London.

Mac returns to New York without Peyton at the start of Season 4. However at the end of the 4th episode () Mac receives a letter from her that says she has decided to stay in London with her family and that a long distance relationship would never work, "however close we may be, there would always be an ocean between us".

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