CBS is planning a schedule change for all three NCIS shows: NCIS, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: NY.
After the network previously hit pause on new episodes earlier this month amid election coverage, the three shows will once again go on hiatus for the holidays. There will be no new episodes on November 24 ahead of Thanksgiving — with CBS airing past episodes instead before each show returns on December 1.
NCIS, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: NY will then wrap up again with midseason finales before they return early next year.
The franchise started when JAG aired on NBC from 1995 to 1996 before making the move to CBS and remaining on the network until 2005. From there, the TV universe expanded to include spinoffs NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawaiʻi, NCIS: Sydney, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
NCIS: NY is the newest addition, which premiered in October with LL Cool J and Scott Caan leading the cast.
“New York is our most iconic city. It’s incredible, and it’s just really a microcosm of the whole country right here in one place with all of the diversity, the different boroughs, the different cultures all colliding and somehow managing to function together,” showrunner Byron Balasco exclusively told Us at the time. “That’s why you make a show here.”
Balasco acknowledged that filming in New York City came with highlights — and challenges.
“The weather is a challenge because you just don’t know what’s going to happen. But that’s it. That’s just a problem to solve,” he shared. “And the highlights are you can really put your camera anywhere and point it anywhere and something interesting is happening. We can go to a neighborhood that we write about and shoot there.”
He continued: “We always try to do that to keep it as authentic as possible because you really want people to feel like they’re at the ground level on the streets in the city with our guys. It feels lived in. The cliche is that New York is a character in the show, but we really do want to make it feel that way.”
Balasco hinted that NCIS: New York will appeal to CBS viewers regardless of whether they have seen other shows in the franchise.
“Our goal is to make a show that has the DNA of the universe but is its own thing. We’ll be cross-pollinating with other shows. But right now, it’s about our characters and our stories and really getting it up on its feet and having people fall in love with the characters,” he concluded.
NCIS airs on CBS Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, NCIS: NY follows at 9 p.m. ET and NCIS: Origins is next at 10 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Paramount+.
