‘Rizzoli & Isles’ season 5 spoilers: Boss on new Nina Holiday role

Tonight on “Rizzoli & Isles,” you are going to see the arrival of a new character into the mix in Nina Holiday, though it is subtle enough that you may not immediately notice. The role (Idara Victor) is the latest addition to the cast, but this is one of those few circumstances in the world of TV where it is not necessarily better to to make a fuss. The reason for that stems from losing Lee Thompson Young earlier in the year.

One thing that you won’t ever hear used as a description for this Nina character is “replacement,” given that this is not what she is meant to be at all. Speaking to TV Guide about the character, executive producer Jan Nash had the following to say:

“Obviously you can’t replace Lee and the Barry Frost role on the show, and in making the decision to really live in the dramatic impact of the loss, we ended up creating some new dynamics within the existing characters … We put Korsak [Bruce McGill] and Jane [Angie Harmon] on cases together, letting Frankie [Jordan Bridges] be involved and have access, and you don’t want to disrupt those again by throwing a new detective into it. We really put a lot of thought into creating this new character. We think of her as a new character, not his replacement per se. She’s filling a part of the show that is adjacent to, but not quite what Frost was doing.”

All of this sounds very smart, and we’re sure that this will be a slow progression getting to know more and more about this character. So even though she may feel like somewhat of a fish out of water at first, she will eventually be an integral and comfortable member of the team.