Dr. Jimmy Palmer takes center stage in NCIS Season 23, Episode 8, as the team is introduced to an AI chatbot that’s supposed to make their jobs easier. It’s not a spoiler to say things aren’t that easy. But this idea provides plenty of room to further explore Jimmy’s character, as well as give him a break after carrying that secret about Parker’s mom around for a couple of episodes.

In an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, NCIS star Brian Dietzen teased what fans can expect from the Jimmy-centric “Stolen Moments.” He also reflected on what it’s been like to be both a star and writer on the series; this is his fourth writing credit. How interesting is it to write for his own character—and what keeps NCIS fun for him after 23 seasons?

Brittany Frederick: “Stolen Moments” is the fourth NCIS episode that you’ve written on. How rewarding is it to have found your creative space on this show, not only as an actor but also as a writer?

Brian Dietzen: It’s pretty great, the opportunity. Steve Binder, our showrunner, was nice enough to say I’ve seen that you’ve written before on your own, on movies and that sort of stuff—so if you want a shot at it, you can go ahead and you can co-write with Scott Williams. So my previous three efforts have been co-written with Scott Williams, who’s a tremendous writer.

And then this year Jesse Stern, who hasn’t written on the show in 15 years, said he wanted to come back and co-write a show just as a freelance [writer], and so Steve Binder asked me if I would like to co-write with Jesse. I’ve been friends with Jesse for a long time, and said yeah, that’d be really fun to do.

It’s been great to be able to write for a show that I know the characters really well, and it’s fun to do, and I’m writing for my friends. There’s also a little bit of pressure there, I have to admit, because you want your friends to like the stuff that’s on the page. You don’t want them to look at you during the scene [like] come on, man, what are you making me do? [Laughs.]

How fun or challenging is it to write material for Jimmy? Obviously you know the character very well, but does it feel different writing for yourself?

It’s not too bad. I think that the voice is okay; it comes pretty naturally. But there’s certain stuff that’s that can be a little bit difficult, and that’s why it’s great to have a whole staff of writers. From Steve to everybody else on the writing staff—Chris Waild and Scott Williams, Marco Schnabel—everybody there to to help out when needed. It really is a team effort, and it certainly was on this episode.

My co-writer Jesse was across the seas—he lives in Spain—so we were kind of writing via Zoom, and [that] presented its own challenges and whatnot, but I was happy with with what we got to do. It was awesome to be able to have help from everybody up in the writer’s office too. Everyone wants to see each show really succeed.

The premise of this episode, with the AI chatbot coming into NCIS, is perfect for Jimmy’s character. So how did the idea come together?

Jesse came up with the concept, saying he wanted to do a “day in the life of Jimmy Palmer” episode. It was really cool talking to him beforehand. He hadn’t been watching all of the episodes since he stopped writing, so he really binged the last three seasons of NCIS before starting to write this episode. He said, I really want to do a day in the life of Jimmy Palmer; I think that would be great. Steve Binder said yeah, that would be cool.

And I was kind of reticent. I was like, I don’t know—is that going to be exciting? Jimmy’s by himself with dead bodies all day. Is that going to be entertaining in any way? And so I believe it was between Jesse and Steve that they came up with the concept of having an AI chatbot there, and that would give someone for Jimmy to talk to throughout the whole thing. I thought, wow, that’s really pretty cool. And then once we tied in the concepts of what time means… Jesse came up with something really cool, and Steve really filled in a lot of spaces that needed to be filled in. It was really cool to be along for the ride.

That means fans get to see Jimmy geeking out, which is always a good time. How is it to have serious moments, like he had earlier in Season 23, and then shift to something that’s more light-hearted?

That’s the balancing act, right, of NCIS. That’s what I think has been our bread and butter is the fact, that if people think an episode is too serious, then just wait a week; you’ll get something a little sillier coming in. If you think it’s too silly, just wait till the end of the episode; there’ll be some feels there as well. That’s what’s been serving us for 23 years now, is the fact that we don’t rest on one or the other. It’s trying to combine the two.

When it’s done correctly, you really soften an audience up with some humor and some joy and some silliness, and then you give them an uppercut at the end. That’s been how we’ve done things for a long time, and when we’re successful at it, it’s really fun to watch.

Is there anything in “Stolen Moments” that you really loved and want NCIS fans to look out for?

What stood out to me is that this show is really about time. It’s about timing. It’s about saving time. That’s one thing that I feel like I can spoil, because we’ve put out a clip already about it, is that NCIS is looking to use this AI chatbot to save time within NCIS. What we try to explore, and I think is a fun thing to do, is to say as a currency, time is only worth something if you spend it with another person. If you just save time and bank it, it really doesn’t mean as much—unless you save that to actually spend it with someone you care about.

And I think that’s one thing that Jimmy’s looking to explore, or is met with during the course of this episode is, what am I doing in this basement surrounded by dead people for my entire adult life? What am I saving all my time for? What am I doing this for? And the answers that he comes up with, I’ll leave that to other people to interpret or determine, but I think it’s a really important thing that everybody’s got to ask themselves, especially in this age of automation. If we can save more and more and more, what are we going to do with all of those savings? Are we going to actually spend it with other people and enjoy our lives, or are we just going to continue to work and maybe find ourselves more disconnected?

What keeps Jimmy as a character or NCIS as a show still interesting after 23 seasons to you?

I think that’s kind of the obstruction, is that you need to find things without repeating yourself incessantly. Within any good story, there needs to be an obstacle, an obstruction of some sort for the protagonist to work past. And as an artist, as an actor, I think all of us have this obstruction of, how do you keep telling fresh things at 500 episodes deep, at 23 years?

That’s been the challenge for us, and a challenge we welcome, because if there’s no challenges, then it just gets milquetoast and everything seems the same and vanilla. So we really are trying to keep these stories fresh and keep these characters met with new things that they haven’t seen before. Even in Season 23, I think we’ve got some amazing, amazing stuff coming up that people would be like, Oh man, this is exciting—especially for longtime fans of the show.

NCIS airs Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Photo Credit: Courtesy of CBS.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.