PASADENA, Calif. — Two TV seasons ago, Gil Bellows died on "Ally McBeal." This past season, he died on "The Agency."
The difference is that he wanted out of the former show. The network and the producers wanted him out of the latter.
Actually, Bellows' character isn't quite dead yet on "The Agency." But May's season-ending cliffhanger isn't offering much suspense, because the actor has been written out of the show.
In his place will be Irish actor Jason O'Mara, who's coming on board to replace Bellows but who will be playing a decidedly different role.
(He won't be playing Irish, however, because "They don't let the Irish in the CIA," said executive producer Shaun Cassidy.)
"We knew that we wanted to bring a much more visceral character to the show than existed in the previous ensemble," Cassidy said. "We have a lot of very, very smart cerebral characters, but we have very few who serve more on action than words. That's what he's going to do."
(What he didn't say was that CBS executives also wanted to up the action quotient on the show.)
"My character doesn't involve himself much in moral issues," O'Mara said. "He doesn't think much about them."
"He's a soldier," Cassidy added. "He has a real clarity of purpose."
The season premiere opens with an "undercover operation where the CIA, FBI, INS and Secret Service are all trying to do something and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and the whole thing explodes in everyone's face." At which point, Homeland Security liaison Quinn (Daniel Benzali) goes to CIA director Gage (Beau Bridges) with plans to create an "incident response team" which will be "led by this guy (O'Mara's character) to go into hot zones and fix problems."
The team will often work in concert with the FBI, and the show will also add a recurring, yet-to-be-cast role of a female FBI agent.
Cassidy said that Bellows' exit is "no reflection on Gil, because Gil is terrific."
"Actually, it's like sort of a basketball team. You have to kind of look at the whole and where do you need the strength and where do you need to beef things up," he said. "We have a very big cast and he did a good job, but we needed somebody else more like this sort of character."
And this isn't the first time that "The Agency" has made a major cast change. Midway through the first season, Beau Bridges was brought in as a new CIA director to replace the one played by Ronny Cox.
"The show has kind of been evolving since the first episode," Cassidy said.
GUY IN THE HELMET: O'Mara hasn't been seen much on American TV, but he did appear in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers."
"I read recently that someone said in a publication, 'Jason was unknown to American audiences until he co-starred in 'Band of Brothers,' " O'Mara said. "I died in, like, episode two. I don't know what the rest even covers."
And his role wasn't that big.
"Yeah, I was the guy in the helmet," he said, "with the stuff."
ON LOCATION: "The Agency" did some location shooting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the producers could do more — but they don't want to.
"We could shoot at (Langley), but we quickly found it's a big white building," Cassidy said. "And we can do that here in Hollywood."
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com