Although Brian Dietzen hasn’t been on NCIS for the entirety of its existence, he comes pretty close. After Gerald Jackson, Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard’s original assistant medical examiner, was injured by Ziva David’s half-brother Ari Haswari, Dietzen’s Jimmy Palmer took his place in the Season 1 episode “Split Decision.” Those two went on to form both a close professional and personal bond that lasted two decades, and naturally that meant Dietzen and the late David McCallum also shared plenty of memorable times together on the NCIS set. For example, the former recently recalled how the latter once convinced him to request a stunt double for an unexpected reason.
Brian Dietzen stopped by Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch to chat with hosts Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, who will soon be re-teaming for the Paramount+ spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva. In addition to Weatherly talking about the disgusting ways he and Sean Murray used to prank each other, the podcast episode also saw Dietzen recalling the filming of the Season 3 episode “Switch,” where Jimmy takes a nasty tumble down a hill on the way to inspecting a body:
So in in the episode, Jimmy Palmer is supposed to be flying down the hill, just running down through frame very fast, then sprains his ankle. I remember early on, McCallum said, ‘You should ask for a stuntman for that day. And I was like, ‘I just have to run down the hill. I’ll be fine.’ McCallum just grabbed me by the by the arm and was kind of serious. And he goes, ‘If you ask for a stuntman, a man who was otherwise unemployed will have a job for the day. Ask for the damn stuntman.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, I will.’ So I asked for the stuntman, and I remember he showed up that day, and McCallum just kind of whispers to me, he goes, ‘You don't even have to use him.’… I did the stunt, but the guy who was hired for the day had a day’s pay.
David McCallum had spent decades acting across film and TV by the time he joined NCIS, with his biggest claim to fame playing Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. franchise. So the man knew what he was talking about when it came to stunt doubles, and in this instance, he didn’t doubt that Brian Dietzen wasn’t capable of doing the stunt on his own. Rather, he simply wanted to his costar to provide an opportunity for a stunt double to get paid for a day’s work, even if they didn’t end up doing anything. It boiled down to him wanting to look out for a fellow performer, and that’s admirable.
Ducky and Jimmy held down NCIS’ autopsy fort together until Season 15, when Ducky took a sabbatical to teach at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and left Jimmy in charge while he was gone. He then embarked on a book tour in Season 16 and eventually resigned as Chief Medical Examiner, with Jimmy officially taking over the position. McCallum continued to occasionally appear Ducky for his remaining four seasons, as the character was made NCIS historian and on a few occasions needed to dust off his autopsy skills for especially important cases. Sadly, with McCallum’s passing in September 2023, Ducky’s death was depicted the Season 21 episode “The Stories We Leave Behind,” which Dietzen co-wrote with Scott Williams.
Break out your Paramount+ subscription if you’d like to revisit Ducky and Jimmy’s time together across 20 seasons. NCIS Season 22 will premiere sometime this fall on the 2024 TV schedule alongside the Leroy Jethro Gibbs-centric prequel NCIS: Origins.
