10+ Burning NCIS: Origins Questions, Answered: Why Is Gibbs Telling Us This Story, Now? And More!
You may have questions before sampling CBS’ NCIS: Origins, which launches Monday, Oct. 14 at 9/8c with a double-episode premiere.
Well, since Rule No. 15 tells us to “always work as a team,” let’s see if TVLine can’t dot some I’s and cross some T’s for you, ahead of the prequel spinoff’s debut.
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Opening in 1991, NCIS: Origins follows a young Gibbs as he starts his career as a newly minted Special Agent at the NIS Camp Pendleton office. There, he will forge his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by the legendary Mike Franks.
Austin Stowell (A Friend of the Family, Secret Life of the American Teenager) fills the role of Gibbs (played on the original NCIS by, of course, Mark Harmon), while Kyle Schmid (SIX, Big Sky) channels a young Muse Watson as Franks.
The series regular cast also includes Mariel Molino (Promised Land) as Special Agent Lala Dominguez, a former Marine with a dark sense of humor; Tyla Abercrumbie (The Chi) as Field Operation Support Officer Mary Jo Hayes, who has wryly dubbed herself “HSIC” (Head Secretary in Charge); Diany Rodriguez (The Blacklist) as Special Agent Vera Strickland, a no-nonsense Brooklynite who’s tough as nails; and Caleb Foote (Made for Love) as Special Agent Benjamin “Randy” Randolf, the “golden boy” tasked with showing Gibbs the ropes.
Read on for answers to a dozen questions we had, and maybe you do, too….
1. DON’T WE KNOW ALL OF THIS ALREADY…?
To longtime NCIS fans who assume that across 19 seasons with Mark Harmon’s Gibbs — including visits from Muse Watson’s Mike Franks and a smattering of flashback episodes starring Harmon’s son Sean as a young Gibbs — they already know everything about Jethro’s beginnings, “I would tell them, they don’t know as much as they think they do,” says co-showrunner David J. North.
On NCIS, “We talked about things, and we had little flashbacks that we went to, but that doesn’t come close to getting into the texture of what could be explored there,” North explains. “Seeing Gibbs arrive at NIS on Day 1, and seeing how Gibbs became Gibbs…. there’s so much to explore. Even for [co-showrunner] Gina [Monreal] and I, every day in the writers room is something new. When I was writing the mothership [NCIS], I never pictured Gibbs exactly like this, but of course he would have done that, of course there was a time when he actually learned where his gear is.”
Adds Monreal, “Gibbs as probie, we’ve not seen that before. We’ve not seen that dynamic between Gibbs and Franks.”
2. HOW WILL NCIS: ORIGINS DIFFER FROM ANY NCIS BEFORE IT?
The series’ co-showrunners had just reviewed the first dailies from the premiere before sitting down with TVLine, “and as proud as I am of what we’ve built at NCIS, this doesn’t look like that,” David J. North shares. “Tonally, we’re a little darker, and the whole look of the show, we wanted it to look current yet ’90s, and I think that [director] Niels Arden Oplev and our DOP, Kevin McKnight, delivered that perfectly.”
Monreal zeroes in on the juxtaposition of the “big orange” NCIS squad room where “they have everything their fingertips” and the Quonset Hut at Camp Pendleton from which Gibbs, Franks et al work: “It’s just so messy and gritty and underfunded, and that’s been really fun to explore.”
3. DOES YOUNG GIBBS HAVE FAULTS?
After all, the older Gibbs who we got to know over nearly 20 years of NCIS was the sharpest and savviest, if not chattiest, of Special Agents. But as a probie, will he have rough edges that need sanding?
“I wouldn’t call this a ‘fault,’” says Monreal, “but when we’re meeting him [in 1991], he’s so fresh out of the Marines, and that is a totally different perspective than we’ve seen. We’re seeing him transition to being a civilian and a civilian agent, and that gives him a different kind of shading than we’ve seen before.”
North then chimes in, alluding to the failed psych eval mentioned in the series’ trailer.
The recently widowed Gibbs’ “biggest fault, in a large, 30,000-foot sense, is taking a job as a Special Agent at NIS that he maybe is not ready for,” the EP offers.
4. IS MARK HARMON PROTECTIVE OF HIS ‘YOUNGER SELF’?
Is Mark Harmon, as Gibbs’ longtime portrayer (and an executive producer on NCIS: Origins), protective of the character he created? Has he set up “guardrails” for just how green (or even bumbling) young Jethro can appear to be?
“No,” co-showrunner David J. North answers. Rather, “He’s as hands-on as we want him to be.”
Harmon is “there for us to talk through things, if Gina and I can’t come to a consensus on something,” North elaborates. “If we’re not sure which way to go, left or right at a fork in the road, and we need another opinion, he’s there for us. Mark’s not going to bulls–t you. And he’s certainly there for Austin [Stowell, who plays young Gibbs], which has been a huge thing and obviously is important to us.”
5. WHAT IS THE GIBBS/FRANKS DYNAMIC LIKE?
In two words? “Boss” and “probie,” says co-showrunner Gina Monreal.
“The way that Austin [Stowell] is playing it, the way he looks at Franks, you can see the bit of awe in his eyes, which is so interesting for both of the characters,” the EP shares.
“I describe them as ‘there’s nothing I love writing more,’” adds North. “Seeing Gibbs in these situations that you could have never imagined Mark in has been wonderful.”
Situations such as…?
“The other day, Gina and I said to Mark, ‘Did Gibbs ever ride in the back seat of car?’ And Mark said never, in 20 years. Because Gibbs was the leader.” So, expect to witness that “first” in the series premiere.
6. AGENT VERA STRICKLAND? THAT’S A DEEP PULL, NO?
Diany Rodriguez’s Special Agent Vera Strickland is a character first played by Roma Maffia once — and only once — in a random Season 11 episode of NCIS. “It is a deep pull,” co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal acknowledges, “but we looked at the timeline and she would have been there [at Camp Pendleton]. She was described [on NCIS] as Franks’ first partner,” though that is no longer the case when Origins opens… and for conspicuously vague reasons.
“Vera has some mysterious elements as well,” Monreal teases, “so being able to flesh out a character that was so clearly defined in that one [NCIS] episode has been really fun, for sure.”
7. WHAT SCENE STEALERS SHOULD WE WATCH FOR?
Tyla Abercrumbie as “Head Secretary in Charge” Mary Jo “is dynamite,” raves co-showrunner Monreal. Adds North: “She’s so, so good.”
But most every character gets a fun moment to shine in the double-episode premiere. “There’s a scene between Mariel (as Lala) and Diany (Vera) that’s really great, and powerful,” North previews.
8. WILL WE MEET A YOUNG DWAYNE PRIDE? HETTY LANGE?
Younger versions of Mike Franks and Vera Strickland (characters played on NCIS by Muse Watson and Roma Maffia) appear on NCIS: Origins. In success, could the prequel one day also cast/introduce Gibbs to circa-1991 versions of Dwayne Pride (played on NCIS: New Orleans by Scott Bakula) and/or Hetty Lange (NCIS: LA‘s Linda Hunt)– the former of which Jethro met as a young agent? “Sure!” affirms North. “I don’t think we want to say no to anything.”
9. WAIT, HOW CAN GIBBS’ ESTRANGED DAD BE A PART OF THIS?
When the late Ralph Waite first guested on NCIS, it was established that Gibbs and his father had not spoken since Jethro’s wife Shannon’s funeral, in 1991. So, how will Longmire‘s Robert Taylor figure into NCIS: Origins, playing a younger Jackson?
Addressing the canonical conundrum, co-showrunner David J North says, “We did solve it. We’re very aware of the canon and what’s been set up, and we’re working within that. But I’ll say this: Jackson is an important role, and we’ll see the influence of him on Gibbs.”
10. REMIND US, WHAT IS ’90S CRIMESOLVING TECH LIKE?
Gotta reach an agent in the field? Ping their beeper.
Need to report back to the office? Hunt down a pay phone, or use the wall phone in the dead petty officer’s kitchen.
Need to walk everyone through the evidence? No smart boards here! Grab a bunch of thumbtacks.
Such 1991 constraints are “wonderful,” North avows, because “it pushes you to solve the stories in ways that’s not just fingers flying over a keyboard, or answers popping up for Kasie in the lab. It pushes us to go further into character, and that’s what we’ve done.”
11. WILL THIS ‘GRITTIER’ NCIS STILL HAVE HUMOR?
Yes, by way of the characters played by Caleb Foote (“golden boy” Special Agent “Randy” Randolf) and SNL vet Bobby Moynihan (forensics lab boss Woody Browne), among others.
“Woody is this overworked guy who’s working the forensics/fingerprints thing, but [in 1991] everything takes forever,” North says with a laugh. “The crew had to try to stop from laughing when [Bobby] was shooting, he’s that good.”
12. IS THERE A REASON WHY ADULT GIBBS, AS NARRATOR, IS TELLING US THIS STORY? NOW?
Yes, NCIS vet Mark Harmon will occasionally appear on-screen, as the older Gibbs relays this story of his NIS beginnings… to anyone in particular?
Why is he looking back on this time in his life? Now? Is he being interviewed? Writing a book? Maybe it’s (gulp) an epitaph of sorts?
There is a reason, North assured me.
He and co-showrunner Monreal later elaborated in an email, “As the creators of the show, we viewed Gibbs telling his own story as an enormous opportunity to actually get into the head of one of the most iconic, enigmatic characters ever.
“As far as how we’re getting this peek behind the curtain — meaning, in what way exactly is our beloved Gibbs telling us his story? — that will be answered on October 14th,” they promised.
Want scoop on NCIS: Origins, or for any other TV show ? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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