The “Helpers” episode - named for Mister Rogers’ famous “Find the helpers” admonition to children - may get as heavy as those aforementioned turning-point episodes. Brian plays that stuff so beautifully - you know, it hits close to home for him, and he’s not afraid to bring it to his work.” And then when they get struck with a tragedy, watching them deal with it is really something. How did the comic relief become the show’s grief whisperer? Says Williams: “In my mind, there is no more tragic figure than someone that is very light lighthearted and whimsical, and always looking on the bright side of things. It happened again recently when the character of Jimmy’s wife, who had existed only offscreen for several years, was revealed to have died of COVID in an especially emotional episode. Williams knew that Dietzen’s mother had recently died and that he’d be able to tap into those feelings at the time. Feeling Dietzen was under-utilized, Williams became Jimmy Palmer’s champion by writing a game-changing 2017 episode, “Keep Going,” in which the character digs into his personal grief in the process of talking a character off a ledge. Williams was a natural co-writing choice for the actor. I guess I’m gonna have to focus on writing, because I can’t speak.’” After three and a half hours, the blood clot in his brain passed - but the realization that he needed to make good on his writing dreams didn’t. I remember getting rushed to the hospital and thinking, ‘Well, I don’t have a career anymore. Then, not many months before the pandemic hit, he had a life-changing moment: “I had a dual embolic stroke in my cerebellum, and my hands were all curled up, and it was terrifying. But even after show-runner Steve Binder gave him the go-ahead to pursue ideas a few years ago, he was as bashful as, well, the younger Jimmy Palmer about pursuing it, “because we have one of the most talented and under-appreciated writing staffs on television, so I thought that might be seen as hubris and I didn’t want to overstep, to be honest.” “The creative element of coming up with something and putting words in the mouth of these characters that I’ve known so intimately and so closely for so many years just seemed to make a lot of sense,” Dietzen says. But it’s not as though there’s a signup sheet where it’s like, ‘I’d like to do this.'”Īs someone who’d previously written a feature as well as some shorts, Dietzen built up some confidence about taking those skills back to his day job. one of our best directors that we’ve ever had. “Rocky Carroll directs a lot of episodes of our show,” points out Dietzen, “and he’s phenomenal. Not that he’s the first to take on any extra duties on the show, but actors have tended to think they want to try their hand at directing more than writing. 28 episode “The Helpers,” he becomes the first actor in the nearly two-decade history of the show to co-write an episode. Now, his character has probably grown more than any other on the show, in terms of from where they started to where they are now.”ĭietzen has his own arc going for him, offscreen: With the Feb. He could play that with his eyes closed, but after awhile, we needed to add some dimension to him, because Brian’s got chops for days. Says executive producer and writer Scott Williams, “When I got onto the show on season 9, he was the comic foil who stuttered and stammered in front of Gibbs (the recently departed Mark Harmon), and this sort of naive, wide-eyed babe in the woods that was being, you know, administered to her ministered to by David McCallum. “NCIS” might have actually given him as big a character arc as anyone’s had on the show. It’s not strictly about lovability: After initially arguably undervaluing the Palmer character. When they’re listing their favorite characters, he always ends up in those top three, always.” “He’s kind of the undercover sniper of people’s favorite characters. “People were sleeping on Jimmy Palmer, man,” says fellow cast member Diona Reasonover, who, as Kasie Hines, has considerable interaction with him on the top-rated series. If there’s always been an underdog on “ NCIS” throughout its 19 seasons, it’s been the nervous, happy-go-lucky guy in glasses down in autopsy played since mid-season-1 by Brian Dietzen, who’s long done a lot with less screen time than some of the characters who aren’t lab-bound.
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