Being a TV actor isn’t easy.
I don’t mean the stars of the shows, like Ellen Pompeo or Mariska Hargitay. I mean, the supporting cast, which is always expendable.
Rocky Carroll got that message in December, and tonight everyone found out. His character, Leon Vance, who runs the NCIS, was killed off unceremoniously.
I don’t watch “NCIS” and have no emotional investment in the long running series. Carroll has been there for 18 years playing the head of the fictional NCIS unit. He’s also the only Black male actor on the show.
Carroll says in an interview he got notice two episodes before the death that his job was over. The actor tries to put the best face on the situation but it’s disloyal and sucks. That’s what he gets for working a steady job for 18 years.
The executive producer, Steve Binder, says in interviews he wanted something “exciting” for the show’s 500th episode. So why not end a man’s employment and maybe career? Makes sense, right?
I love the way CBS publicity has spun this as an emotional plot point in the series. In fact, it’s probably a way for the series to unload a highly paid actor and at the same time lower the median age of the cast. Carroll is 62, which in TV means you’re dead. He’s 20 years older than the next two most tenured actors on the series, Sean Murray and Brian Dietzen. Gary Cole, the actor who took over when Mark Harmon was retired, is 69. I’ll bet he flips to the end of every script to see if he made it.
Carroll is being gracious, at least publicly. So hats off to him. But feh on the TV machine.
