The formula ain’t broke, and CBS’s latest addition to its beloved “NCIS” franchise, focused on young Agent Gibbs, doesn’t plan to fix it.
“NCIS” is one of the jewels in the crown of the CBS network. It’s a well-oiled machine of naval-related crime-solving that has remained one of the most-viewed shows on television for over two decades. The series that started it all way back in 2002 is 22 seasons in and has outlasted three of its four spin-offs. It only makes sense for the network to keep that good ship moving forward, even though surely they’ve run out of navy-specific murders to solve at this point. Maybe that’s why this new series is a prequel, focusing on the franchise’s original hero, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
“NCIS: Origins” opens on a two-parter (now tradition for this franchise) that reintroduces audiences to Gibbs. Mark Harmon, who played the role for 20 years, is on-board as executive producer and narrator, but the role is played by franchise newcomer Austin Stowell. He’s young, handsome and tortured by the vicious murders of his wife and child (as any seasoned “NCIS” fan can already tell you.) Ready to start his career as a newly minted special agent, he joins the ranks of the Naval Investigative Service and Camp Pendleton, where he was recruited by Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid), a mustachioed agent who’s introduced like an ’80s action hero. His first-ever case is a doozy: a fire, a dead woman in the ashes and some spooky bones hanging from the ceilings. Is it satanic? Or is it all a red herring to distract from the real danger?
There are some 1980s period gags here and there, mostly references for the audience to get a quick giggle at (ooh, IBM computers and Jane Fonda workout tapes!). Largely, however, it doesn’t look all that retro. The series mercifully avoids shoulder pads and mullets and sticks to what it knows.
Don’t come to “NCIS: Origins” expecting a radical deviation from the franchise aesthetic. It’s still all glossy cinematography, endless music cues to loudly signal how everyone is feeling, and gooey corpses you’re still stunned to have pride of place on a major network during primetime.
Procedurals live and die by their formula: There’s a crime; the good guys solve it, albeit with a few forks in the road; the bad guy gets caught; life moves on, but the pain remains. Audiences enjoy the predictability as well as the minor quirks to the setup that each series provides. It’s why they’re such reliable ratings hits, even in the age of Too Much TV and streaming competition.
“NCIS” has so thoroughly perfected its formula that “Origins” dares not move even a step off the well-trodden path. The mothership show always has a cavalcade of fun and broadly defined characters and so does the prequel. Gibbs is stoic and plays by the rules, but is weighed down by the trauma of his past. Franks is a quip-spouting renegade who doesn’t play by the rules but has a heart of gold; Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino) is the lone woman of the team, a tough-as-nails agent forced to stand out in a male-dominated workplace through good work and snark (she calls all the men “boys” a lot, just to drive this home.) Benjamin “Randy” Randolf (Caleb Martin Foote) is the golden boy who’s good with exposition dumps. These characters are all instantly recognizable within ten seconds of the audience meeting them, such is the commitment to efficiency in this series. They’ll tell you how they feel (and how to feel about them) just as quickly.
Reviewing a show like “NCIS: Origins” is tough because it’s a proudly predictable show that is nonetheless ruthlessly committed in its execution. The tropes are well-worn to the point of parody, but why wouldn’t they keep using them when they’ve proven to be so reliable? We’ve had versions of this exact set-up every season for decades: “NCIS,” “CSI,” “Law & Order,” “Bones,” “FBI,” “Criminal Minds” and so on. Critics grow bored of them but audiences don’t, and they’ll always be way more consistently viewed than the Emmy winners of any given year. The “NCIS” franchise is almost brutal in how straightforward it is and it’s the most beloved of them all. Why rock the boat when the fans want a steady ride?
Does “NCIS: Origins” succeed within the rigid boundaries it set for itself? Sure. It’s extremely watchable in the two episodes available for review. It looks good, is easily consumed, has solid acting, and a central mystery that is diverting without being labyrinthine or dumbed down. The quirk this time is both the chance to see a young Gibbs in action before he became the reliable dad of the original series, and to check out how the agents solved crimes without the often ludicrous and near-fantastical tech of modern-day TV labs. And there is something appealingly low key about a show where cops have to use payphones, and where computers are too rudimentary for anything more detailed than a spreadsheet.
In short, it’s an “NCIS” show. The success of “NCIS: Origins” will live and die on whether it can get audiences to care about these other characters while keeping its specific formula comforting in its familiarity. There’s no reason to assume they won’t pull it off. They’ve got over 1,000 episodes of TV across 46 seasons to prove it.
“NCIS: Origins” premieres Monday, Oct. 14, on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.
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