Say goodbye to Sunset Beach’s Cole Deschanel. The handsome heartthrob/con artist is outta there, leaving his wife Caitlin to cry into her pillow.

Justs how his exit will be executed is another matter. Cole sat in a London jail for several weeks while his family fretted away halfway around the world. At press time, it was unclear if Cole would exit with a bang or with a whimper, disappearing into the English penal system.

The reason for the character’s departure is simple: NBC has promoted actor Eddie Cibrian (Cole) to its primetime roster. He’s one of the stars of its new hit series THIRD WATCH, playing sexy fireman Jimmy Doherty.

Of course, there have been many stars that can juggle both daytime and primetime roles at the same time, but Cibrian’s new show films in New York, while SUN sets in Los Angeles. The commutes a bitch.

There could potentially be a big finale for Cole “"f we have enough notice to write it," says SUN headwriter Margaret DePriest. "But we don’t know exactly when he’s available to us or not available to us."

As much as Cibrian enjoys working on SUN, he’s anxious about wrapping up the soap. "Hopefully then I can just make the move to New York sooner than I thought instead of flying back and forth," he says.

And as excited as Cibrian is to be in a hot show from the creator of ER, "it’s scary to move to New York," he admits. "My friends and family are in L.A. I don’t have any friends or family in New York, except for cast members. And they are actually like my family now. It’s scary, but it’s also exciting."

The role of Irish firefighter Jimmy wasn’t supposed to end up as a regular on THIRD WATCH, but plans changed when Cibrian came on board. Creator John Wells reworked the part to make Jimmy one of the show’s lead characters, and that was incentive enough for Cibrian to bid adieu to his soap days.

"I like to work with good scripts and good parts," says Cibrian. "When SUNSET BEACH first came to me, it was a good part. They told me that it would be the main storyline of the show, and that’s something that I wanted to do at the time. That’s how I usually choose my roles."

IN the past year, Cibrian’s Cole has moved off of the front-burner, so this is a well-timed leap: "My career is definitely progressing." He’s also being called upon to do most of his own firefighting stunts. "I’m just an action freak," he says. "I love to do that stuff."

And firefighting is like a childhood dream come true. "I’m not saying if I wasn’t an actor I would be a fireman, but that’s something I could do," he admits. "It’s a game and you’ve got to get in there and win the game, especially because there are lives at stake."