NCIS Just Wasted A Fan-Favorite Star Trek Actor

Contains spoilers for "NCIS" Season 21 Episode 8 — "Heartless"

"NCIS" has had its share of guest stars whom fans might have forgotten appeared on the show.  While this is typically not the series' fault, the Season 21 episode "Heartless" happens to feature a "Star Trek" legend who was used to less than proper effect, leading to a forgettable appearance.

That was Tim Russ as cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Erik Harper in the episode, but his time on-screen is remarkably brief. He's seen in a single scene at the beginning of "Heartless" as he trains a team of first years to save their patient's life. They fail, and when they take a break to regroup and he can order them dinner, a group of masked men confronts Dr. Harper. He is kidnapped, driven 200 miles away, and killed. The rest of the case involves tracking down Harper's killers, resulting in Alden Parker (Gary Cole) and Harper's colleague Dr. Clara Logan (Christina Kirk) ending up in close quarters when the thieves come after them. This teases a new possible romance for Parker, and Harper's death is the catalyst.

Though the appearance is decidedly a pivotal one that gets the episode's plot going, for a talent of Russ' caliber, it's quite a waste. Russ is perhaps best known as Tuvok on "Star Trek: Voyager," but he's also popped up in two different branches of the "NCIS" world.

Tim Russ has appeared in three episodes across multiple "NCIS" shows, playing a different character in each of them. His first time was in Season 3's "Jeopardy," where Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) is accused of murder after a suspect dies in her custody. But while the team commences investigating the death, more bodies connected to Ziva begin to pile up around them. Later, NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly) is kidnapped. Russ plays Jerry Kemper, who works security at a car rental service connected to a high-end hotel where Shepard has been staying; he's there when Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) finds the body of another person in the director's trunk.

Russ appears in "Ties that Bind," from Season 4 of "NCIS: New Orleans." He plays Felix Hill, the proprietor of a jazz club called Delilah's, where Dwayne Pride's (Scott Bakula) mother performed when he was a child. Memories complicate Pride's investigation of Hill and his daughter, who are tangled up in the death of a petty officer in the Navy, as well as in the local drug trade. It's the meatiest role Russ has been given in the "NCIS" universe so far. Hopefully, his next time on will be as complex as his time on "New Orleans."