With its 23rd season currently airing on the 2025 TV schedule, NCIS continues to be a phenomenon, and is well beyond its 1,000th overall episode, which aired in 2023. The franchise has spawned multiple successful spinoffs, including NCIS: Tony & Ziva (now streaming via Paramount+ subscription). But such eventual success wasn't immedaitely evident, as Mark Harmon refeclted on the struggles the Mothership faced during its earliest years on CBS.
For those who don’t know, NCIS is a spinoff of JAG, which aired primarily in the ‘90s for 10 seasons. NCIS got a two-part backdoor pilot in early 2003 during Season 8, where fans were introduced to Gibbs, Tony, Abby, and Ducky for the very first time. When the show eventually premiered later that year without David James Elliott's character in the mix, it actually struggled to get off the ground, as Harmon told TheWrap:
People don’t remember this, but ‘NCIS’ wasn’t a jump-off hit. We struggled, and sometimes the struggle is the most important part of doing anything. This is a tough process. It doesn’t come off easy and it takes time. But I know that, creatively, this show is in really good shape. I’m glad to be a part of it.
It’s hard for a show to be an immediate success, even when it's a spinoff of a successful and beloved show, which can sometimes hurt more than it helps, since people might not want to give it a chance at first. It sounds like it took a while for NCIS to really find its footing, and it’s a good thing it did because it’s still popular 22 years later.
When NCIS was just starting out as a backdoor pilot, it actually didn’t take Harmon long to say yes to signing up for a serialized project. He previously recalled one thing that helped him realize he wanted to join the series, admitting that Gibbs’ name is what took him in. Only he probably didn’t know that he’d stay with the show for close to 20 years, and his exit was thought to be the death knell for NCIS.
Harmon was on NCIS for the first 18 seasons before ultimately leaving as Leroy Jethro Gibbs at the beginning of Season 19. He’s now back in the NCIS universe serving as executive producer and narrator of the Gibbs-centered prequel series NCIS: Origins. He returned on-screen for the series premiere last year and will be appearing in the upcoming crossover between NCIS and Origins on Tuesday.
The fact that NCIS struggled in its early years and is now 23 seasons deep, with six spinoffs, is impressive. And it makes me so happy that the series was able to come out of its creative slump because television would be a whole lot different without the NCIS franchise. And now there is much to look forward to as the franchise continues. NCIS, Origins, and NCIS: Sydney have taken over Tuesdays on CBS, marking the first time the franchise has taken over a full night on the network, and there is no telling what could possibly be next for it.
The crossover begins on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET with Origins, followed by NCIS. New episodes of Sydney air at 10 p.m. ET.