Two decades of NCIS and counting with no sign of being over anytime soon. The flagship series will proceed into its 22nd season in Fall 2024, and although NCIS: Hawai’i viewers were not thrilled with that cliffhanger cancellation, CBS is pushing forth with plans for two new spin offs, including NCIS: Origins about the beginning of Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ naval-investigative career and a show that re-teams Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo. This return-to-basics approach follows a similar and successful move by Law & Order reviving their original series and keeping Elliot Stabler’s undercover assignments alive on Organized Crime.
After all, the secret to nostalgia is to capitalize upon subjects that audiences are truly nostalgic about. In other words, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Los Angeles, and NCIS: Hawai’i have each concluded, but the main series continues going ridiculously strong, so CBS and Paramount know what people really want. Just as people missed Chris Meloni on SVU, NCIS hasn’t been the same for many viewers who miss Mark Harmon’s character along with those of Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly. With that said, the late David McCallum will always be missed as Ducky, but the original gang’s legacy keeps growing. What can we expect from NCIS: Tony And Ziva?
Plot
Several updates have materialized, and plenty of excitement exists for this spin off, but I have a question: why not “Ziva And Tony” instead of Tony And Ziva? Perhaps DiNozzo grabbed a Sharpie and made that call because it ain’t his endless stream of movie references that’s winning him first billing.
With that said, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly’s chemistry is undeniable after multiple seasons of ex-Israeli Mossad officer Ziva David appearing to be annoyed with loverboy Tony DiNozzo’s antics. She was no-nonsense until the NCIS writers finally drew them together in a romantic manner around Season 10, and the ‘shippers loved it. To briefly recap, however, Ziva departed NCIS in Season 11 and then “died” during Season 13 while in Israel. Then DiNozzo left the series to do the right thing by raising Tali, their daughter.
As it turns out, Ziva had faked her death, and the duo is now back in each other’s orbits. How long has this been going on? CBS isn’t letting any official answers fly, but Variety has reported word of how De Pablo and Weatherly admitted to joking about the title of this series being NCIS: Trust No One. The characters are now living in Paris (with filming happening in Budapest to avoid the Olympics crush). Trust is their overriding issue, other than the outward antagonists that the pair must defeat in this spin off:
“I think the idea of trust, and the idea of how this relationship moves forward is something that was intriguing to us as actors. We’re trying to address the idea of trust and we’re trying to address how they move forward parenting together with this child and trying to make things work and having a lot of challenges thrown at them.”
Weatherly and de Pablo also did curiously reunite with former co-star Sean Murray, who still portrays Timothy McGee on NCIS, for an episode of the Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast. During that reunion, De Pablo remarked, “By the way, we haven’t been in the same room together in 10 years. 10 years.” Murray added, “I know when I see you guys that I feel really good.”
Hmmmmm. This tells us nothing concrete of any reunion plans, but Weatherly (that stinker) has surfaced on TikTok to tease, “There is gonna be a surprise Cote de Pablo thing, but I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
This has, of course, led to speculation about a Ziva cameo on NCIS to pave the way for the spin off. By the way, the aforementioned podcast also included a reunion between Weatherly, de Pablo, and Sasha Alexander (who portrayed Caitlin Todd) from the earliest seasons of the principal series.
No matter what happens with further reunions beyond Ziva and Tony, expect to see new characters, including (as TV Line has revealed) a “British nanny/bodyguard”-type character and “a Russian hacker extraordinaire (of course), a French Interpol liaison and #Tiva’s tweenage daughter Tali herself, to ideally be played by a French-American ingenue.” Additionally, the main duo has promised (via a Paramount statement) that “[t]he world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears and laughter.” Now, it’s official spin off description time:
When Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, try to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.
Cast
Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly are reprising their fan-favorite roles, and hopefully, we’ll see some sort of cameo from another departed NCIS soul. Surely, this won’t be Pauley Perrette, but other possibilities do exist.
Release Date
The show will stream on Paramount+. As far as actual airtime goes, CBS hasn’t yet revealed whether the network will make like NBC (with the Law & Order shows) and schedule weekly NCIS night with three series running (including Origins and Tony And Ziva) in consecutive order. It’s entirely possible that these shows would be staggered (like most recent The Walking Dead shows), so that there isn’t an annual drought without new NCIS episodes running. Whatever the case, NCIS: Origins was slated for late 2024/early 2025, so hopefully, Tony And Ziva won’t be too far behind.