It’s been more than 20 years since NCIS premiered as a backdoor pilot on JAG — and the genre of criminal investigation series has never been the same.
NCIS debuted in 2003, following Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs and his team of rowdy and somewhat green Naval Investigators — including Michael Weatherly’s Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo and Sean Murray’s Timothy McGee — as they found justice and answers for those killed or affected by crimes in the armed forces.
While there have been a lot of personnel changes over the past two decades, including Weatherly’s 2016 exit and Harmon’s 2021 departure, NCIS has remained a gift of a show — one that keeps on giving, for crime lovers.
Sure, spinoffs NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: Hawai’i have all run their respective courses, but the flagship series was standing strong at the start of 2025 — and its spinoff game even stronger. (New Orleans ended in 2021, Los Angeles in 2023 and Hawai’i in 2024.)
NCIS entered its 23rd season in fall 2025, something all of Us fans could, and very much did, celebrate.
The fall TV schedule also included new seasons of two beloved spinoffs, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney, as well as a new iteration of in the universe with familiar faces: NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
‘NCIS’
Gary Cole, Sean Murray, Wilmer Valderrama and Katrina Law. Bill Inoshita/CBS
To say 2025 was full of riches for NCIS fans would be an understatement. NCIS dove into Alden Parker’s (Gary Cole) childhood, the death of his mother and teased Special Agent Ellie Bishop’s (Emily Wickersham) mysterious return to the show — and the season isn’t even over yet.
“We’re in our 23rd season, and you know, we’re still trying to do different shows and not trying to just do the same old thing,” Murray, 48, exclusively told Us Weekly in November of the OG series. “We’re trying to bring new stuff into it. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never been bored here.”
Murray, the only original NCIS cast member still on the show, noted, “We’re always looking for the kind of, the interesting angle on things and a different take.”
Murray’s costars, which currently include Cole, Wilmer Valderrama, Katrina Law, Brian Dietzen, Rocky Carroll and Diona Reasonover, have also made it so fans keep coming back season after season in support.
NCIS’ spinoffs, however, are proving to be an equally valuable piece of the franchise’s success in recent years.
‘NCIS: Sydney’
Olivia Swann, Todd Lasance. Daniel Asher Smith/Paramount+
NCIS: Sydney premiered in 2023, making it the first international iteration of the show. With female Special Agent Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann) at the helm, fans have been taken into a whole different world of problem solving.
Mackey, along with her Australian Federal Police (AFP) counterpart Jim “JD” Dempsey (Todd Lasance), have viewers shipping them while also wondering how they can work side by side with so many cultural differences.
With the start of season 3, fans finally started to sink their teeth into the complex characters that make up their team — and the wild adventures that can happen in the Outback and beyond.
“The main thing for the characters is the past coming up to haunt us. And there is an overarching kind of conspiracy that somehow links to Mackey,” Swann, 33, exclusively told Us in October of the current season’s evolution. “It’s very, very interesting and very intricate. We are upping the ante in a way that I didn’t even think was possible. There is more action, there’s more drama, there is more fun.”
She teased, “It’s just a fun, wild ride, and we get to kind of tag along with this found family, these misfits who are just trying to keep people safe.”
Swann added that the writers really brought their A-game this season. “We have a treasure hunt. We have an alien abduction in the outback,” she promised. “We have a podcast cold case from years ago. We have a nanotech assassin. We have explosions up the wazoo.”
‘NCIS: Origins’
Mariel Molino, Austin Stowell. Erik Voake/CBS
NCIS: Sydney isn’t the only spinoff that upped its game going into the fresh 2025 seasons. NCIS: Origins, which is actually a prequel series that debuted in 2024 didn’t shy away from drama, romantic entanglements or high-stakes cases to kick off season 2 earlier this year.
NCIS: Origins follows a young Gibbs, played by Austin Stowell, as he gets his start at NIS (it was once called Naval Investigation Service) in ‘90s while located in Southern California. His career with mentor Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid) begins after Gibbs’ wife and daughter are killed amid his tour overseas — which OG NCIS fans already know all about.
During season 2, however, the lingering romantic feelings between Gibbs and partner Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino) became a major focus after she was nearly killed in a car accident to end season 1.
Even though the series follows the NCIS cannon — so fans know Gibbs will be married a total of four times — viewers can’t help but root for Lala and Gibbs to be endgame. That desire for an entire franchise to somehow alter its trajectory speaks to the power of the acting in this show and just how beloved the stories are among fans.
“Even though we can’t play out this love, we can play out the subtleties of wanting someone and how that affects you in every aspect of your life, through work, in your career, in your personal life,” Molino, 33, exclusively told Us in October when asked about Lala and Gibbs’ future. “You just want to prove them wrong or make them proud.”
‘NCIS: Tony & Ziva’
Cote de Pablo, Michael Weatherly. Marcell Piti/Paramount+
In September, Paramount+ added to the NCIS legacy with the premiere of NCIS: Tony & Ziva. If you’ve been around since day 1 of the OG series, then you could’ve guessed exactly what this spinoff was about. Tony DiNozzo (Weatherly) and Special Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) and their story after they both left NCIS.
During their time on NCIS, the pair fell in love and after Ziva was presumed dead following an explosion at her family compound in the middle east, Tony discovered they shared a daughter named Tali. Ziva’s perceived death led to Tony leaving his job in Washington, D.C., to care for Tali and find out who harmed his true love.
NCIS fans eventually learned that Ziva was alive but it wasn’t until the Paramount+ show that they were privy to the missing years between Tony and Ziva once they were reunited. The creative spinoff included flashbacks to the years of 2020-2025 to tell the story of how the couple got back together, split up and coparented before being thrust back together to protect their daughter Tali from an imminent threat in modern-day Paris.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva was canceled in December after just one season, but for fans of the couple it finally gave Us answers — and for that we are grateful.
“The real connection between them comes from, obviously, there are these very tender, also very flirtatious moments they have,” de Pablo, 46, exclusively told Us in October of Ziva and Tony’s connection ahead of the series finale. “Of course, [there are] the very sort of sexy scenes when they’re about to go into the apartment and all of that. As a fan, you have to see that to understand the payoff in the end. And so those flashbacks, I think work really well.”
As 2026 approaches, fans have more new episodes of NCIS, NCIS: Sydney and NCIS: Origins to look forward to — and if we’re lucky, more spinoffs to come down the line. But for now, all of Us can just breathe easy knowing the franchise is alive and well.
NCIS, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney return on CBS Tuesday, February 24, 2026, at 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET, respectively.
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