NCIS Season 21 Spoilers Follow
NCIS star Brian Dietzen has opened up about how David McCallum’s death significantly impacted Season 21.
McCallum, who passed away at age 90 last year, left a void as plans for the new season were still in development. In response, the producers decided to craft a special episode to write out McCallum’s character, Ducky, and honor his legacy on the show.
The production team enlisted McCallum’s longtime co-star Brian Dietzen, who portrays Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jimmy Palmer, to co-write the episode “The Stories We Leave Behind” with Scott Williams.
This poignant episode sees the NCIS team grappling with Ducky’s death while solving one of his unsolved cases, involving a woman whose father was dishonorably discharged from the Marines.
Dietzen, who has previously written for the show, explained to TVLine that he hadn’t planned on writing for the shortened Season 21 until McCallum’s passing.
“Before David passed, we had that work stoppage with the WGA and SAG strikes, so I had said to Steven Binder and David North, our showrunners, ‘I don’t need to write this year’, because we only have 10 episodes,” he said.
“I didn’t want to insert myself. But then when David passed away, Scott Williams, my co-writer, volunteered to do this episode and he said to me, ‘I thought it was only right that you co-write with me.’ And then everybody in the room said, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s what should happen.’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, I’d be honored to.'”
The tribute episode focuses on Jimmy’s reaction to Ducky’s death, including the revelation that Jimmy found Ducky dead.
“Since Jimmy worked so closely with Ducky for a couple decades, it made sense that a lot of the story would be retold through his eyes and his memories,” Brian shared.
“And certainly, McGee had been there with him as well, but what was really important to Scott and I, and to the whole crew, was that we honor Ducky’s relationship with the larger team, not meaning just the current team of Parker, Knight, Torres, McGee, and Kasie, but also the teams that came before.
“We wanted to make sure that some of these memories, and some of these loved ones and family members from past iterations of the NCIS team, were represented, and that his relationship with those characters was honored as well.”
This special episode, titled “The Stories We Leave Behind,” will air Monday, February 19.
NCIS airs on CBS in the US and returns for Season 21 on February 12. Seasons 1-20 are streaming on Disney+ in the UK.
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