Fishburne recently signed on to continue his role of team leader Langston through the 2010-11 season. Irwin will make a second guest appearance as the long-imprisoned Nate Haskell, a.k.a. the Dick and Jane Killer, a role he previously played last season in the two episodes that welcomed Fishburne to the show (Fishburne replaced William Petersen’s Grissom).

Haskell’s reappearance has to do with Langston’s search for the elusive serial killer known as Dr. Jekyll. The show’s executive producer, Carol Mendellsohn, told buddytv.com, “He knows who Dr. Jekyll is, which is kind of interesting since he's been in prison for the last 11 years. The season finale is all about what it will take to get him to give them a name.”

Fishburne won a Tony for Two Trains Running and was nominated for Thurgood, which he will perform again in Washington, DC and Los Angeles during his summer hiatus. Irwin won a Tony for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and recently appeared on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and Waiting for Godot.

— Thomas Peter