NCIS has gone through many changes and some large ones at that. Many of the cast members left the series or went on to pursue other things after making an impact on the show. Only a few core characters have been there from the beginning or close to it. But, NCIS has been good about choosing the right people to stick around on the show, leaving audiences with numerous brilliant episodes to watch. However, one of the defining moments early on, when Caitlin “Kate” Todd (Sasha Alexander) was shot, changed the show forever.
Caitlin Todd Left a Hole in Our Hearts Not Even Ducky Could Fix
Although the show continued on after her death, Kate was still brought up during the following season and beyond and the gang has often slipped up, thinking she’s still there. A good example of a slip-up is when McGee (Sean Murray) is looking for something in the van but can’t find it, and DiNozzo (Micheal Weatherly) tells him he should ask Kate because that’s her job before stopping himself and slamming the door shut as he comes to the realization she isn’t there anymore. Although Caitlin was only around for the first two seasons, she helped shape the show into what it is today. Her character had so much development and was so well-rounded that it was difficult to see her go. They even operate her as a code when DiNozzo has to let Gibbs (Mark Harmon) know someone is dead without alerting the person who is holding him hostage. He tells Gibbs, “I’ve got Agent Caitlin Todd looking for her.” Of course, Gibbs, being Gibbs, can read between the lines and figure out DiNozzo’s clue.
Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, disordered, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.
🚨The Pitt
🏥ER
💉Grey’s
🔬House
🩺Scrubs
01
A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.
02
Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The candid answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.
03
What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
04
You lose a patient you fought difficult to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.
05
How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more exact than your self-image.
06
How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
07
What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?
08
At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most candid thing about you.
Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…
Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center
The Pitt
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.
You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.
County General Hospital, Chicago
ER
You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most necessary.
You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle
Grey’s Anatomy
You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.
You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ
House
You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.
You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re sharp enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.
Sacred Heart Hospital, California
Scrubs
You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.
You are sultry, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You operate humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
In Season 3, right after her passing, the team each saw visions of her as they say goodbye and try their best to cope. Gibbs is especially heartbroken as he saw Kate upset with him but the vision helped him resolve his feelings by the time of her funeral. In classic DiNozzo fashion, he sees Kate in an over-sexualized manner: in a schoolgirl outfit. This, in turn, causes McGee to do the same. First, he sees her as a superhero doing flips and badass stunts, but he soon turns her into a dominatrix. Abby (Pauley Perrette) sees her in a goth outfit, having fun and being lively. Ducky (David McCallum) talks to her on the autopsy table as he does to everyone, but she is the only one who talks back. She was portrayed so differently depending on who was thinking about her, allowing audiences to see how her co-workers saw her and how they grieved such a significant loss.
Kate Was Always an Integral Part of ‘NCIS’
Sasha Alexander in NCISImage via CBS
During her run on the series, Kate assisted in numerous cases and used her skills, especially as a profiler, to capture countless criminals. One notorious criminal that the NCIS squad worked on catching for multiple episodes was Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin), a terrorist and double agent. Ari would often escape by the skin of his teeth or get off because his government protected him. He and Kate had a special relationship; he always sought her out and tried to get her alone. Plus, there’s their first meeting when she hesitates when she has the chance to kill him. Kate always said his eyes made her hesitate, but after being held hostage by him and seeing who he really was, Kate knew she would never make that mistake again. She worked tirelessly with the team to capture him. The team gets him, but not before he kills Kate. It was such a good fake-out because Kate gets shot in the chest protecting Gibbs, but she had a bulletproof vest on. Gibbs helps her up, and Ari shoots her right between the eyes. Gibbs and DiNozzo stand there in shock as they realize what’s happened. But it shifts their gears into overdrive as they work harder than ever to catch Ari, and they succeed.
Kate fit in with the other characters really well, especially Abby. They spent time together outside of work and knew a lot about each other’s personal lives. Their friendship was genuine, and their bond was robust. Kate even drew Abby as a bat, which Abby hung in her office. Abby took Kate’s death the hardest and became skeptical of any modern members joining the team. Gibbs and Kate had a mentor-mentee relationship. He taught her well and gave her all the tools she could ever need in the field. They developed an attachment for one another and always had each other’s backs. Kate and Tony had a brother/sister relationship that often caused them to bicker or roast each other endlessly, but when the chips were down, they showed how much they cared for each other.
Why Did Sasha Alexander Leave ‘NCIS’?
Kate was written off the show because of circumstances behind the scenes. After signing a contract, she was originally set to do six seasons with NCIS. The problem for Alexander, however, was the workload. Who could blame her? It seems pretty hardcore. Examining the evidence, we see that there are about 24 episodes a season, which means ten and a half months of filming for 17 hours a day. It would take its toll on anyone, and Alexander wanted to go in a different direction. She wanted to be able to focus on her family more and be more choosey about her imaginative endeavors.
Caitlin Todd Paved The Way For A New Character
Ziva David (Pablo De Cote) and Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) in NCIS
Image via CBS
Even though losing Kate was a devastating blow, it made way for one of the most beloved characters on NCIS: Ziva David (Cote de Pablo). Like Caitlin, she is a perfect match for DiNozzo, but in a polar opposite way. Caitlin had more of a sibling rivalry with DiNozzo, and they would always be trying to one-up one another in front of Gibbs. They would always fight and bicker, and she would always find Tony’s jokes disgusting. In comparison, Ziva would be just as raunchy as DiNozzo, if not more. She and DiNozzo have their will-they-won’t-they take on things until they finally get together.
Ziva is such a cold character in her own right. She works well with the team once she earns their trust and proves herself to them. Her skills are exceptional, but she is always willing to learn something modern from Gibbs. And although her driving may be terrifying, she always gets the gang to their destination in one piece. Ziva proves herself an invaluable member of the crew and brings a fresh modern perspective. And while Kate can never be replaced, Ziva’s introduction filled a hole in the hearts of fans who were still mourning the loss of one of the best of NCIS.
