Police procedurals are a dime a dozen, but there are little things that set them apart. Shows like “Law & Order” mixed elements of police procedural with courtroom drama, while shows like “Bones” looked at crime solving from a slightly different perspective, and for the long-running CBS series “NCIS,” the twist in the formula was that the investigators were all a part of the U.S. military. Originally a spin-off of “JAG,” “NCIS” and its many, many spin-offs all follow departments within the NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, beginning with the Washington D.C. office, based at the Washington Navy Yard. There, led for 19 seasons by Special Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon), the Major Case Response Team helped solve the worst crimes related to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and related government agencies. (Harmon left the series in season 19 and was replaced by Gary Cole’s Special Agent Parker.)
While the special agents who go out into the field and catch suspects get a lot of the high-intensity scenes, the forensics team are the real heart of any procedural and “NCIS” had one of the best forensics teams in TV history, led by forensic specialist Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) and chief medical examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard (David McCallum). While Abby might not have looked like what someone might expect of a crime-solving specialist, it turns out they should check their expectations, because Perrette herself has a Master’s Degree in Criminal Science.
The actor who played Abby really understood criminology
In 2011, Perrette spoke with Deseret News about her time as a criminology student before going into acting, even saying that when she was a kid she thought about pursuing a career as an FBI agent. Instead she got her Master’s in Criminal Science from Valdosta State University in Georgia before moving to Manhattan to study at the John Jay College of Criminal Science. It was while working odd jobs to pay her way through school in Manhattan that she was discovered by someone who knew a casting director, and the rest was history. Perrette explained that she wanted to go into criminology to help people, saying:
“I feel like life on planet Earth is incredibly hard. There are things we just can’t stop: floods and fires and earthquakes and tsunamis — crushing events for people to deal with. But I don’t understand someone making the world more difficult on purpose, to harm people with no empathy whatsoever, saying, ‘I’m going to make things even worse. Watch me!’ That’s the motivation for me wanting to be a crime fighter.”
While Perrette didn’t do much crime-fighting in real life before starring as Abby, she was incredibly memorable playing a character that was sort of a version of herself, likely inspiring a whole generation of people to go into forensics who might have otherwise thought it was only for stuffy old men. Unfortunately, she left in 2018, with Abby being written out of the series because Perrette was having issues with Harmon and wanted out. After Harmon left in 2021, some fans speculated that she might return, but Perrette has been adamant that she’s not ever planning on acting again.
Perrette and Abby both show a different side of criminology
What’s great about Abby is that she subverts expectations at almost every turn. Sure, she’s a goth forensics expert and that seems pretty on-point given the blood and death involved with forensics, but she also has a personality that’s all sunshine and rainbows. She’s an absolute delight, a bubbly and excitable nerd who loves the science behind it all and just wants to do the right thing in a world where that’s increasingly difficult. While she’s not a part of the franchise any more and wasn’t really ever a part of the (almost obscene number of) spin-offs, it’s hard to think of “NCIS” without thinking of everyone’s favorite pigtail-wearing forensics geek.
Not only has Perrette’s character inspired girls to pursue criminal science, but she also set up a scholarship to help young women going after those degrees. There are two scholarships, one at Valdosta State and another at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and the “Pauley Perrette Forensic Science Scholarship” was founded to help female students at those schools succeed. When you study criminology, portray one of television’s best forensic scientists, and then help young women achieve their forensic dreams? Now that’s what I call a superhero.
