But Mike didn’t appear as that particular character until Joel was gone.
Mike’s first episode didn’t have Joel, but am I right that they do see Joel one more time on the original run of the show and the two interact?
But Mike always was a fill-in bit player on the show playing many different characters. I don’t think the character he played when he took over was one Joel (the character) ever met.
There is a history but I don’t think she ever appeared in the long running Bosch series but Bosch in in Ballard show in current show time - he advises her
The Mike character was in Joel’s final episode, Mitchell. But he was on Earth with the mads the whole episode. Joel and Mike never interacted.
Well for values of “the original run”, yes, Experiment 1001, Soultaker:
Hey, here they are interacting. Thnaks to @ParallelLines for reminding me where I saw it.
More of a cameo than an actual passing of the torch from old character to new character, but it was cute.
No problem, always happy to help out a fellow fan!
Back to the thread though, as our OP laid out -
It probably doesn’t count, but in terms of intent, yeah, I’d consider it a passing of a torch. Joel is present, shows his care for the team, but is making it clear that it’s Mike’s responsibility/problem now.
YMMV of course!
The biggest change I notice is the detectives get more responsibility in Major Crimes. They’re working crime scenes and forming ideas about the case.
Brenda in The Closer just gave the detectives orders. You do this and you do that. Then they came back with answers.
Overall the transition was surprisingly smooth. Kyra was in every scene. Mary McDonnell replaced her and was a central character. But she wasn’t in all the scenes.