NCIS fans are among the toughest TV viewers. During the franchise’s impressive two-decade run, we’ve experienced a lot of abuse, the latest coming in the form of yet another spinoff.
So is NCIS: Origins an inspired idea or an overused trope? It’s a fine line we’re currently straddling.
While NCIS has had better success with spinoffs than other series, the franchise is not immune to failure.
And while we love the NCIS universe, when will we decide we’ve had enough of the spinoffs and the expanded franchise? Regardless of when that time is, it’s not here in 2024.
After the sad news of a last-minute cancellation of NCIS: Hawai’i, NCIS fans are getting two new spinoffs, NCIS: Tony and Ziva in 2025 and NCIS: Origins, joining the CBS fall lineup along with NCIS Season 22.
NCIS: Origins: Inspired Idea or Overused Trope?
When news first broke of yet another NCIS spinoff coming soon, the mental anguish began. We’ve witnessed multiple attempts to expand the NCIS universe to varying degrees of success.
NCIS has spanned the country, from Virginia to LA to Louisiana to Hawai’i. It’s even gone international with agents in Australia. Hey, that approach worked for FBI: International.
Of the spinoffs, the only one still going is NCIS: Syndey, returning for a second season. But Syndey was never intended for US audiences.
So, does it really count?
After several failed attempts, writers decided to take a new approach to their NCIS spinoffs by focusing less on the locale and more on the characters.
The original NCIS series is still going strong after twenty-plus years.
And that’s largely because of the continuing legacy left behind by Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Anthony DeNizzo, and Ziva David.
Although they’ve left NCIS to move on with their lives, fans still cling to their memory.
So much so that the two upcoming NCIS spinoffs feature all three of our favorite former agents.
NCIS: Origins is an Inspiring Idea
On the surface, NCIS: Origins could answer our prayers following Gibbs’ — Mark Harmon’s — exit from the original NCIS series after 19 seasons.
Gibbs is back! But not how we remember him when he left.
NCIS: Origins is traveling back in time. To 1991.
Origins will not only show us how Gibbs became the aloof, distant leader we all miss, but also take us to the early days of the NCIS agency.
We’ll see the start of it all.
Jethro is fresh off the trauma of Desert Storm and the losses of his wife and child.
While Gibbs is put together and emotionally closed off in his Silver Fox era, Origins promises to give us a more raw, less controlled (and younger) Jethro. Another major change will be the pacing.
Origins will be more action-packed and character-focused, giving us a deep look at the personal side of Gibb’s life.
The latest NCIS: Origins promo teases viewers like me, who consider themselves Gibbs experts, promising a side of Gibbs we’ve never seen before.
Holy NCIS!
We’ll also become more familiar with significant people who impacted Gibbs’s life as a Greenhorn newbie agent and a grieving soldier.
From Daddy Gibbs to Gibbs’ mentor Mike Franks and more, fans will get a deeper look at Leroy’s formidable years.
NCIS: Origins is Another Overused Trope
While the previews for NCIS: Origins have intrigued me, I’m also annoyed at the news of yet another spinoff.
In an earlier piece, I made the same complaint about Jared Padalecki’s new role in Fire Country, signaling that FC will franchise with Fire Country: Surfside. Sheriff Country is coming in 2025.
People like me might be in the minority, but sometimes a show is better off left to phase out over time to make way for new blood. But that doesn’t mean there should be any relation between the old and the new.
Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but tossing out spinoffs of a successful show is overdone and a bit lazy.
Have we really seen everything done to the point that we have to regurgitate the same shows with a new twist?
Whether it’s rebooting a show that ended decades ago — I could list them, but you’d get tired of reading this post before I was done. I am excited about Matlock, however. Or modernizing an old series to be more all-inclusive and PC.
It seems like most shows in our TV lineup fall into one of those two categories — reboots or spinoffs.
We rarely see original ideas; if we do, they don’t survive long.
Given that NCIS’s previous attempts have had less success with each spinoff, the two new attempts feel like a last-ditch effort to keep the franchise relevant despite the changing landscape.
- NCIS: Los Angeles – 2009-2023 (14 seasons)
- NCIS: New Orleans – 2014-2021 (7 seasons)
- NCIS: Hawai’i – 2021-2024 (3 seasons)
- NCIS: Sydney – 2023-present (on its second season as of Fall 2024)
- NCIS: Origins – 2024- (1 season) <– We are Here
- NCIS: Tony & Ziva – 2025 (TBD)
But what should we expect from a series that has found two decades of success as a spinoff itself? A show of hands for who knew that NCIS was a spinoff of the ’90s series JAG?
So, after seeing some failures in making a spinoff work by location, it feels like the writers have done a desperate final two-second Hail Mary.
Despite our love for the show’s new faces, the diehard fans still mourn the loss of our favorite agents. So, what better way to rejuvenate a fledging show than to give the fans what they want?
The solution — an entire series about everyone’s favorite fearless leader — before he became the boss. Intriguing, but not exactly a substitute for Mark Harmon.
While we won’t see Harmon in his most notable role on our screens, he will lend his voice to the series as a narrator. Austin Stowell will portray a younger Gibbs at the start of his career as a newly minted agent with the NIS.
Is NCIS: Origins an Inspired Idea or an Overdone Trope?
While NCIS: Origins takes a new approach to the franchise and serves as a prequel to the original series, it’s still a spinoff of the original.
Will the premise be enough to make it another hit series?
Or is this yet another wasted attempt for the NCIS franchise to compete with other ongoing franchises?
Both Law & Order and FBI are successful at having several series under their umbrella, although the trend started years ago.
These days, it seems like most series begin with the intent to franchise into the next big universe.
What are your thoughts on the new NCIS: Origins series? Do you think it’s a neat way to approach another spinoff?
Or are you on the Let It Go train and think it’s time to stop trying to grow the universe and build a new empire altogether?
Leave us your thoughts in the comments! We love talking to our readers. Are you on our super duper awesome email list and following us on social? You should, or you’re missing out!
