Saturday throwback: The casting decision that made NCIS LA as popular as it became

 

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20090621065049/http://www.tvguide.com/News/NCIS-LA-Hunt-1007069.aspx

June 18, 2009

by Matt Mitovich (the dude who runs TV Line's Inside Line! and this was before that website was made as well.)

CBS' NCIS spin-off will be Living Dangerously with the addition of Linda Hunt to its cast.

Though this news comes on the heels of Louise Lombard being dropped from the NCIS: Los Angeles ensemble, Hunt is not replacing Lombard's Agent Macy per se. Rather, the Academy Award winner is coming on board as a new character not seen in the backdoor pilot that aired as two May episodes of NCIS proper.

Hunt will play a former film-industry technician who now oversees the support staff at the L.A.-based Office of Special Projects. There, she will outfit Special Agents Callen (Chris O'Donnell), Hanna (LL Cool J) et al with micro surveillance cameras and other gee-whiz gadgets.

In other words, she's Q, just with a lower voice register.

In the NCIS: LA pilot (aka the NCIS episodes "Legend, Part 1" and "Legend, Part 2"), Lombard's Macy was a former major in the military police-tuned-investigator. It is unclear at this time whether that role will be recast, or Macy replaced on the OSP team.

USA Network is rebroadcasting the aforementioned pair of NCIS episodes this Friday night.

Hunt, who won a supporting actress Oscar for 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously, recently recurred on TV's The Unit and Without a Trace.

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A team destined for greatness needs a great leader, and that woman they had in the backdoor pilot was not it.

On June 18th, 2009, this show made the casting decision that became it's best one. Linda as Hetty became to NCIS LA what Mark Harmon was to NCIS for many years, and she was so much better!!

NCIS LA would never have become as popular as it became without Hetty at the helm, because when she was at the helm, everything fit into place as it should. The teamwork was incredible, the writing was solid, and the cast and crew had a blast filming from all the BTS pics and videos they shared throughout the show's glory years (I know, because I've seen a lot of them)! And the fans loved it all in all parts of the world.