One spinoff has created a major challenge for the Leroy Jethro Gibbs spinoff show, NCIS: Origins. The expansion series will further explore elements of Gibbs’ backstory introduced in the main series, following Gibbs in the 1990s when he is freshly assigned to Camp Pendleton. The NCIS: Origins story will see him learn from the legendary NCIS agent Mike Franks, witnessing Gibbs honing his skills as a federal investigator. While it’s an exciting premise, the timing of the show’s announcement is in conflict with another NCIS show.
Many changes have been made to the fabric of the NCISverse in the last few months. Following the announcement of NCIS: Origins, CBS opted to cancel NCIS: Hawai’i before season 4. What’s more, CBS has the Origins spinoff on their fall schedule for Monday nights at 10 pm ET, which is NCIS: Hawai’i‘s old time slot. While focusing on Mark Harmon’s central character is appealing to some, others favor the fresh NCIS: Hawai’i characters that were introduced to them in the Hawai’i-based spinoff.
NCIS: Origins Will Need To Prove Its Worth After Canceling NCIS: Hawai’i
The NCIS Franchise Has Signaled That Origins Is Replacing Hawai’i
The expansion series will face one major challenge when it premieres this fall: NCIS: Origins will need to prove its worth after the cancelation of NCIS: Hawai’i. With the Gibbs-centered spinoff sliding into Hawai’i‘s former time slot, it signals that the franchise is replacing one spinoff with the other. Some unfinished NCIS: Hawai’i storylines worsen the show’s cancelation, leaving many viewers wondering why showrunners opted to truncate the storylines of the entire cast of NCIS: Hawai’i in favor of exploring the backstory of one character from the franchise’s main show.
Some viewers are doing more than just wonder. A group of NCIS: Hawai’i fans have pronounced that they will boycott NCIS: Origins in protest of the series’ cancelation. The exact reason given for the cancelation is vague. CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach has said that it came back to “the cohesiveness of the schedule flow.” The NCIS franchise will likely lose a portion of its base if a mutual understanding isn’t reached. Even then, it’s unlikely that Hawai’i fans will be interested in Origins for the same reasons they liked the diversified island-based spinoff [via Looper.]
Reasons That NCIS: Hawai’i Will Be Difficult To Replace With NCIS: Origins
NCIS: Hawai’i And NCIS: Origins Couldn’t Be More Different
When appreciating all the things that made NCIS: Hawai’i special, the Gibbs spinoff isn’t much of a replacement. The cast of the island-based series provided refreshing diversity for the entire franchise. Most notably, Jane Tennant (Vanessa Lachey), the Special Agent in Charge of the NCIS Hawai’i Field Office, was the first female to be cast as the team lead for an NCIS show. Lachey was also the first Asian American lead for the franchise. The show also saw LL Cool J’s Sam Hanna return to the NCIS franchise, providing nostalgia to fans of NCIS: Los Angeles.
NCIS: Hawai’i also featured a relationship between two female federal agents that was essential to the show’s narrative and development. The relationship between Junior Special Agent Lucy Tara (Yasmine Al-Bustami) and FBI Special Agent Kate Whistler (Tori Anderson) was widely accepted by the LGBTQ+ community as a positive portrayal of a realistic relationship between two women. The absence of the relationship moving forward is a massive loss for the NCIS franchise in terms of representation. There were also elements of Hawaiian culture on the show that set the show apart from its other location-based spinoffs.
How NCIS: Origins Will Differ From The Franchise’s Other Spinoff Shows
NCIS: Origins The First Prequel For The Franchise
On the whole, NCIS: Origins will look drastically different from the franchise’s other existing spinoff shows. The series will be the first prequel of the franchise, which puts it into an entirely different category from the other spinoff shows that were all set in the present day. The prequel spinoff will explore an existing character rather than introducing new ones. It will take risks expanding an existing NCISverse character, attempting to leave what made Leroy Jethro Gibbs so special untouched while doing a complete reboot of his character and narrative.
NCIS: Origins will also break a 15-year NCIS franchise tradition by being a spinoff show that focuses on something other than NCIS offices at different locations. The franchise’s other spinoffs have focused on NCIS offices in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawai’i, and Sydney, respectively. The choice to hone in on characters from the flagship series in the upcoming spinoffs, in tandem with the cancelation of NCIS: Hawai’i, signals a major change in direction for the franchise. The change is solidified with the introduction of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, another upcoming spinoff that will also focus on characters from the flagship series.
While it’s great that the NCIS franchise is focusing on a character that many of its dedicated viewers want to see more of, the network’s timing has upset a portion of its fan base. It’s likely that the network wants to capitalize on the success of other origin shows like Young Sheldon, but its cancelation of NCIS: Hawai’i was not a savvy trade-off. Dedicated NCIS: Hawai’i viewers enjoyed seeing diversity that they could relate to on-screen, and regardless of what NCIS: Origins has to offer, it can’t provide what Jane Tennant and company brought to the franchise.