The actor behind Captain B.J. Hunnicutt hadn’t acted on screen since guesting on a pair of “NCIS” episodes in 2019.

MASH* star Mike Farrell guests on 9-1-1 in his first screen appearance in 7 years

The actor behind Captain B.J. Hunnicutt hadn't acted on screen since guesting on a pair of "NCIS" episodes in 2019.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

EW's editorial guidelines

January 30, 2026 6:47 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Mike Farrell on '9-1-1'; Mike Farrell on M*A*S*H. Credit:

Disney+; Paul Harris/Getty

A *M*A*S*H* alum has returned to the small screen for the first time in seven years.

Mike Farrell, who portrayed Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the hit war dramedy, guest starred on season 9, episode 10 of *9-1-1* on Thursday.

In the episode, Farrell portrayed Bill Schneider, an elderly man trying to pick his girlfriend up at the airport — much to the chagrin of his son Andrew (Jason Gray-Stanford), who thinks his dad is at risk of being catfished.

Mike Farrell on 'M*A*S*H'.

CBS Photo Archive/Getty

Farrell's last screen appearance prior to *9-1-1* came in 2019 when he portrayed Judge Miles Deakin in two episodes of *NCIS* season 16. Before that, he played Lee Miglin in two eps of *Impeachment: American Crime Story* in 2018, and recurred in seven episodes of the Jason Momoa crime series *The Red Road* on Sundance TV in 2014 and 2015.

Farrell will next appear in the independent film *The Strawberry*.

"It's really a very thoughtful film," the actor said of the project in a 2025 interview with PEOPLE. "I play a character who's gotten a diagnosis that's gonna mean he can't survive with the disease and what the process is to go through with your family ... and it's a very, very deeply thought through script by a man who went through that with his father."

Mike Farrell in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Feb. 27, 2025.

Jesse Grant/Variety via Getty

Farrell has spent his recent years focused on political advocacy. He has served as the president of Death Penalty Focus, a nonprofit advocating for the abolition of the death penalty, since 1994, and in 2025, he executive produced the documentary short *The Window on Death Row*, which chronicled the story of Joaquín José Martínez, a man who was exonerated from death row.

The cast of 'M*A*S*H': Where did the actors end up after the series ended?

'M*A*S*H' star had to reshoot exit from show: 'It's awful'

The actor also reflected on working on *M*A*S*H* from 1975 to 1983 in his conversation with PEOPLE.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

"It stands out in my life's experience as one of the great periods," Farrell said last year. "The combination of what we were doing, what we were talking about, what we were showing, the blood and guts level of what we were dealing with, and the reality of what was going on around us in the world at the time contributed to a really special mix of emotions and thoughts and principles and people."**

- Crime & Legal Dramas

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Crime”