NCIS

CBS' NCIS spin-off will be Living Dangerously with the addition of Linda Hunt to its cast.

Though this news comes on the heels of Louise Lombard being dropped from the NCIS: Los Angeles ensemble, Hunt is not replacing Lombard's Agent Macy per se. Rather, the Academy Award winner is coming on board as a new character not seen in the backdoor pilot that aired as two May episodes of NCIS proper.

Hunt will play a former film-industry technician who now oversees the support staff at the L.A.-based Office of Special Projects. There, she will outfit Special Agents Callen (Chris O'Donnell), Hanna (LL Cool J) et al with micro surveillance cameras and other gee-whiz gadgets.

In other words, she's Q, just with a lower voice register.

In the NCIS: LA pilot (aka the NCIS episodes "Legend, Part 1" and "Legend, Part 2"), Lombard's Macy was a former major in the military police-tuned-investigator. It is unclear at this time whether that role will be recast, or Macy replaced on the OSP team.

USA Network is rebroadcasting the aforementioned pair of NCIS episodes this Friday night.

Hunt, who won a supporting actress Oscar for 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously, recently recurred on TV's The Unit and Without a Trace.