Gibbs (Austin Stowell) got a visit from an old and future friend in the latest NCIS: Origins episode, with Adam Campbell reprising his role as the young Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard from the mothership. It was in a tribute episode to the late David McCallum. Story-wise, it’s the second time that Gibbs and Ducky have encountered one another; the latter remembers their first meeting (on NCIS) much more vividly than the former, who has been through quite a bit in the decade-plus that has passed, including the murders of his wife and daughter. Could we see the third time soon?
“Maybe we’ll see him again,” NCIS: Origins executive producer David J. North tells TV Insider. He calls the chances of that happening “pretty good.”
After all, as we saw, Ducky was able to help everyone he encountered in big and small ways, including advising Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid) to call his brother — Philip Winchester debuts in the role in the next episode, airing November 4, so clearly it works.
“They all learned a little something from him because he’s just that kind of guy where he comes in and he touches everyone’s lives, and you’re all changed a little bit, maybe a little bit wiser from having been in contact with Ducky,” notes North.
Campbell already knows what he’d like to see should he return in the future, and it involves both Ducky’s past and personal life.
“I’m actually quite interested in why he went into the Army to begin with, because he was in the British Army. I’m very interested in that, about why he pursued that initially, that path, what that was like, the experience of, he didn’t necessarily fight, but he experienced battlefield trauma. So I suppose some of that is quite interesting,” he shares.
He adds, “There are little bits about his love life that we’ve touched on in the mothership, so that would be kind of cool to explore a bit more. I’m intrigued what he’s like — how do women view him? Is he as charming as he seems to me? Is he just more seen as a friend? Is he sort of in demand? Do women swoon after him or is he far more kind of standoffish? That kind of stuff would be quite interesting to me.”
Campbell also notes the change we see in Gibbs’ approach to Ducky in his episode. “There’s an initial bit of suspicion and standoffishness that Gibbs has towards Ducky, that Ducky being who he is, he just barrels through, doesn’t care, busts through the hard exterior and gets through to the soft center, as it were,” he says. Now, this second meeting has “worn away some of Gibbs’s hard exterior, and I think Gibbs by the end of this episode, certainly feels, ‘This is a guy I can actually trust. There’s no need to be suspicious of this guy. I can share things with him because I know he’ll be honorable and he’ll take what I say seriously and not be frivolous with any private information I share with him.’”
Do you want to see Adam Campbell return as Ducky? What would you like to see if he does? Let us know in the comments section below.
NCIS: Origins, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS
