With NCIS in the course of its twenty second season on the 2024 TV schedule, and having launched a profitable procedural franchise, it’s straightforward to neglect that way back, it was a by-product of one other fashionable CBS present. Again in 2003, the authorized sequence JAG aired two episodes in its eighth season known as “Ice Queen” and “Meltdown”, which served because the backdoor pilot for NCIS. Twenty years later, Mark Horowitz, who was an govt producer on NCIS till final yr and a co-executive producer on JAG, recalled the previous present’s beginnings and the steps that have been taken to distance itself from the latter sequence, which included the pitch to CBS being described as “Regulation & Order within the Navy.”
How NCIS Ended Up Not Simply Copying Regulation & Order
Along with discussing the degrees of secrecy that went into bringing again Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David on the finish of Season 16, Horowitz recalled the origins of NCIS (to not be confused with the prequel sequence NCIS: Origins) whereas speaking with de Pablo and Tony DiNozzo actor Michael Weatherly on Off Responsibility: An NCIS Rewatch, the podcast they host collectively. The manager producer began off by saying:
My recollection is that it was pitched to CBS as Regulation & Order within the Navy. And in case you keep in mind these spinoffs, that is form of how these reveals went. There was against the law and NCIS could be the cops, they usually’d are available they usually’d cope with the crime for the primary half of the present, after which a brand new set of younger, taking place JAG attorneys would then take over and prosecute the case. That was really the unique pitch, and that is form of how these two episodes labored.
Keep in mind that on the time NCIS was beginning, the unique Regulation & Order had been working for over a decade, Regulation & Order: Particular Victims Unit had been airing for slightly beneath half a decade, and Regulation & Order: Felony Intent was two season into its run. There’s a world the place NCIS might have simply ended up as CBS’ carbon copy of the favored NBC procedural franchise, and perhaps it might have nonetheless been profitable, however co-creator Don Bellisario wasn’t fascinated with going that route. Horowitz continued:
After which Don [Bellisario]… he had his finger on the heartbeat of these items. You bought to completely give him all of the credit score for this. He is watching this and realized, I believe, what he actually had on this on this solid and thought, ‘No, no, no, I am not going to try this. I need all of them. I need these individuals on a regular basis. I do not wish to be mixing it up.’ And [he] created this entire new present, and there was quite a lot of emphasis to make NCIS not seem like JAG to maintain to to make it a really separate present visually.
Whereas there have been loads of situations the place authorized illustration will get concerned with NCIS instances, and several other JAG characters did return in NCIS: Los Angeles, the reveals on this franchise have performed nicely for themselves focusing solely on the brokers and people inside their shut circle. You may see the proof of that by streaming any of those reveals with a Paramount+ subscription.
How NCIS Distanced Itself From JAG
However it wasn’t sufficient to steer clear from Regulation & Order territory; the unique NCIS additionally needed to distinguish itself from the feel and appear of JAG, as famous in Mark Horowitz’s earlier quote. He need on to elucidate how this was achieved by the totally different taking pictures and modifying kinds, in addition to the scripts being barely shorter than common. In his phrases:
The Bourne Identification films had come out. There have been these quick lower, nearly like rock video-style taking pictures for drama, form of attention-grabbing. Man on Hearth, these movies are popping out, and JAG was performed nearly like a Nineteen Forties film. It was very basic, basic photographs and composition and large orchestra music, form of form of like an outdated ‘40s-style movie. And the concept was for NCIS to be totally different and for it to draw maybe a youthful viewer and simply to have a unique appear and feel so that you had one thing else to go watch. A part of the problem was that the script got here in at 72 pages lengthy. A traditional script would have been 10 pages shorter than that 72-page script.
Mark Horowitz then instructed a particular story of Don Bellisario, who created NCIS with Don McGill, directing the primary episode of the sequence, “Yankee White”, which was known as again to within the franchise’s 1,000th episode. Cote de Pablo hadn’t joined the sequence but, however Michael Weatherly was there alongside Mark Harmon, Sasha Alexander, Pauley Perrette and David McCallum, with all however Alexander having debuted their NCIS characters within the backdoor pilot from JAG. Horowitz defined:
I can keep in mind Don directing “Yankee White,” and also you guys would do a rehearsal and he’d say, ‘Okay, that is superb. Now do it twice as quick.’ He needed all the fabric, he simply did not wish to have to chop something if he did not should. He would have you ever guys speak as quick as you presumably might, and we might shoot with three cameras on a regular basis. I do not suppose you guys half the time even knew, ‘Okay, that is the shut up digital camera and that is taking pictures large and this one’s carrying me backwards and forwards.’ You simply needed to be on on a regular basis. There was no, ‘Properly, I will wait until I get to my shut as much as give it.’
So much has modified since NCIS first began airing, with not one of the unique primary solid members nonetheless round, and Sean Murray’s Timothy McGee and Brian Dietzen’s Jimmy Palmer being the one Season 1 holdovers. Nonetheless, these instincts to deal with this sequence with a unique method than how backdoor pilot was dealt with paid off. Certain, backdoor pilot had a wholesome run of 10 seasons, which is greater than most TV reveals get, nevertheless it’s secure to say its recognition was far surpassed by what its successor achieved.
NCIS Season 22 will resume on Monday, January 27 at 9 pm ET on CBS, the identical night time that NCIS: Origins’ debut season will proceed. The NCIS: Sydney Season 2 premiere will comply with on Friday, January 31, and the Paramount+-exclusive sequence NCIS: Tony & Ziva can also be anticipated to reach on the 2025 TV schedule.