NCIS (TV series)

NCIS
File:NCIS title.jpg NCIS intertitle
Created by	Donald Bellisario Don McGill
Starring	see below
Composers	Matt Hawkins Maurice Jackson Neil Martin
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	129 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Donald Bellisario Chas. Floyd Johnson
Producers	David Bellisario Avery C. Drewe Mark Harmon
Production location	Santa Clarita, CA
Cinematography	Billy Web
Running time	approx. 42-44 minutes
Production companies	Belisarius Productions CBS Paramount Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 23, 2003 – present
Related
JAG

NCIS (promoted as Navy NCIS in season one), aka Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service or NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

The concept and characters were initially introduced in a two-part episode of the CBS series JAG (episodes 8.20 and 8.21). The show, a spin-off from JAG, premiered on September 23, 2003 on CBS and, to date, has aired five full seasons. Donald Bellisario, who created JAG, as well as the well-known series Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap, executive produces NCIS. NCIS was originally referred to as “Navy NCIS”. However "Navy" was later dropped, as it was redundant. NCIS returned for its sixth season on September 23, 2008 in the US, and in the UK, Friday January 9, 2009 on Five, showing season 5.

Premise

NCIS is a television show that follows a fictional team of Naval Criminal Investigative Service Major Case Response Team (MCRT) special agents, headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. It is described by the actors and producers (on special features on DVD releases in the USA) as being distinguished by its comedy elements, ensemble acting and character-driven plots.

NCIS is the primary law enforcement and counter-intelligence arm of the United States Department of the Navy, which includes the United States Marine Corps. NCIS investigates all major criminal offenses (felonies), those crimes punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice by confinement of more than one year, within the Department of the Navy. This can be seen when the “NCIS team” is frequently assigned to high-profile cases such as the death of the President's military aide, a bomb situation on a U.S. Navy warship, the death of a celebrity on a reality show set on a USMC base, terrorist threats, and kidnappings.

The “NCIS team” is led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Gibbs’ team is composed of Special Agent and Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) and Mossad Liaison Officer Ziva David (Cote de Pablo). The team is assisted in their investigations by Chief Medical Examiner Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum), Forensic Specialist Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) and Assistant Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen).

NCIS is headed by Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), and earlier by Thomas Morrow and then, Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly).

Main cast

Main article: List of NCIS characters

Name	Portrayed by	Occupation	Character Status
Leroy Jethro Gibbs	Mark Harmon	Special Agent In Charge // Major Case Response Team Supervisor, NCIS	Regular (2003–Present)
Anthony DiNozzo	Michael Weatherly	Special Agent // Major Case Response Team Senior Field Agent, NCIS Reassigned as an Agent Afloat in Season 5 ("Judgment Day") Transferred back to the Major Case Response Team in Season 6 ("Agent Afloat")	Regular (2003–Present)
Timothy McGee	Sean Murray	Special Agent // Major Case Response Team Junior Field Agent, NCIS Transferred to Cybercrimes Division in Season 5 ("Judgment Day") Transferred back to the Major Case Response Team in Season 6 ("Last Man Standing")	Regular (2004–Present)
Ziva David	Cote de Pablo	Mossad Liaison Officer, NCIS Liaison position was terminated in Season 5 ("Judgment Day") Liaison position reinstated Season 6 ("Last Man Standing")	Regular (2005–Present)
Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard	David McCallum	Chief Medical Examiner and Forensic Expert , NCIS	Regular (2003–Present)
Abby Sciuto	Pauley Perrette	Forensic and Evidence Specialist, NCIS	Regular (2003–Present)
Leon Vance	Rocky Carroll	Director, NCIS former Assistant Director, NCIS	Regular (2008–Present)
Jimmy Palmer	Brian Dietzen	Assistant Medical Examiner, NCIS	Recurring (2004–Present), "Also Starring" Credit (2009-)
Tobias Fornell	Joe Spano	Senior Special Agent, FBI	Recurring (2003–Present)
Mike Franks	Muse Watson	Retired Supervisory Special Agent, NIS; Mentor to L. Jethro Gibbs	Recurring (2005–Present)
Cassie Yates	Tamara Taylor	NCIS Special Agent, NCIS	Recurring (2005-present)
Michelle Lee	Liza Lapira	Special Agent // Lawyer, NCIS Killed in Season 6 ("Dagger") by Gibbs in order to kill a suspect	Former recurring (2006–2008)
Jenny Shepard	Lauren Holly	Former Director, NCIS Killed during a gun fight. Season 5 ("Judgment Day")	Former regular (2005–2008)
Caitlin "Kate" Todd	Sasha Alexander	Special Agent, NCIS Killed by Ari Haswari in Season 2 ("Twilight")	Former regular (2003–2005)
Dr. Jeanne Benoit	Scottie Thompson	Doctor, Monroe University Hospital	Former recurring (2006–2008)
Paula Cassidy	Jessica Steen	NCIS Special Agent, NCIS Killed in Season 4 ("Grace Period") by a suicide bomber	Former recurring (2003–2007)
Hollis Mann	Susanna Thompson	Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, CID retired	Former recurring (2006–2007)
Thomas Morrow	Alan Dale	Former Director, NCIS Deputy Director, DHS	Former recurring (2003–2005)
Gerald Jackson	Pancho Demmings	Former Assistant Medical Examiner, NCIS	Former recurring (2003–2005)

Production

Naming the show

Prior to the launch of the first season, advertisements on CBS identified the show as "Naval CIS." By the time of the launch of the first episode, NCIS was airing under the name Navy NCIS, the name it held for the entire first season. Since the "N" in NCIS stands for "Naval,” the name Navy NCIS was technically redundant (an example of RAS syndrome). The decision to use this name was reportedly made by CBS, over the objections of Bellisario, in order to:

• Attract new viewers (particularly those of JAG), who might not know the NCIS abbreviation.
• Disambiguate between NCIS and the similarly-themed and similarly-spelled CBS series CSI and its spinoffs. (The original title, for instance, was often misquoted as Navy CSI.”)

After its successful first season, the name of the series was shortened to NCIS.

Filming location

NCIS is set in Washington DC area but is filmed in Santa Clarita, California.

• The sound stages are in Santa Clarita, California
• The series is shot throughout southern California

Crew changes

It was reported in May 2007 that Donald Bellisario would be stepping down from the show. It turns out, due to a disagreement with series star Harmon, that Bellisario's duties as show runner/Head Writer would be taken over by longtime show collaborators, including co-executive producer Chas. Floyd Johnson and Shane Brennan, with Bellisario retaining his title as Executive Producer.

Ratings

American Ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of NCIS.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Timeslot	Season premiere	Season finale	TV season	Ranking	Viewers (in millions)
1st	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 23, 2003	May 25, 2004	2003–2004	#26	11.84
2nd	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 28, 2004	May 24, 2005	2004–2005	#22	13.63
3rd	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 20, 2005	May 16, 2006	2005–2006	#16	15.3
4th	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 19, 2006	May 22, 2007	2006–2007	#18	14.5
5th	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 25, 2007	May 20, 2008	2007–2008	#10	15.65
6th	Tuesday 8:00PM	September 23, 2008	TBA	2008–2009	#5	18.3

°Times listed are in ET

NCIS has become a top 10 program in its fifth season, averaging 15.65 million viewers, despite a WGA strike. Notably, the show is one of the few that has actually increased in viewership as it progresses, as opposed to most shows, which decrease in popularity as they fade, and has even been able to finish a strong second to Fox's American Idol, a time slot seen by many as a "death slot" for most series.

NCIS delivered its largest audience ever to date, in the sixth season episode "Silent Night", soaring to 19.86 million viewers. It won its time slot in households (12.0), viewers (19.94m), adults 25-54 (5.8) and second in adults 18-49 (4.0; behind NBC's season finale of The Biggest Loser). NCIS posted its best ever delivery in households and viewers, best adults 25-54 performance since October 16, 2007 and matched season high adults 18-49 delivery.

Its second highest rated episode (Jan. 2009): households (11.6), viewers (19.10m), adults 25-54 (5.6) and second in adults 18-49 (3.8).

Other Ratings

DVR Ratings:

• The show ranked number four in DVR playback (2.714 million viewers), according to Nielsen prime DVR lift data from January 5-11, 2009.

Cable Ratings:

• The show ranked number eighteen (4.793 million viewers) in the list of Nielsen Ratings top twenty most-watched cable shows for the week ending January 25, 2009.

Non U.S. Ratings

Canada: None

U.K.

Figures for the UK are unreliable as they are one season behind the US as well as being split between cable and terrestrial TV. Repeats are spread over many channels.

• The Channel Five latest series five episodes average around 2.4 million per new episode
  
• Season 5 episode 1 January 9 2009 2.62 million
• Season 5 episode 2 January 16 2009 2.76 million
• Season 5 episode 3 January 23 2009 2.19 million
• Season 5 episode 4 January 30 2009 2.12 million
  

Australia:

Episodes

Main article: List of NCIS episodes

Five seasons of NCIS have been aired, with a sixth season which started September 23, 2008. A total of 129 episodes have aired as of 17 February 2009.

DVD releases

Main article: NCIS DVD releases

All five seasons of NCIS have been released as full-season boxed sets in Region One DVD format. Seasons One to Four have also been released on Region Two and Region Four DVD format for sale in the United Kingdom and Australia. Note also that the first season DVD release omits the two-part introductory episode that aired as part of the eighth season of JAG.

DVD Name	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
Season 1	June 6, 2006	July 24, 2006	August 10, 2006
Season 2	November 14, 2006	October 16, 2006	October 12, 2006
Season 3	April 24, 2007	June 25, 2007	March 15, 2007
Season 4	October 23, 2007	May 19, 2008	July 10, 2008
Season 5	August 26, 2008	2009	May 7, 2009

Soundtrack

Main article: NCIS (Soundtrack)

CBS Records, announced in December 2008 that the release of the show's first soundtrack has been set for February 10, 2009 According to the NCIS soundtrack website, NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack will be a two-disc set that includes brand new songs from top artists featured prominently in upcoming episodes of the series as well as the show’s original theme by Numeriklab (available commercially for the first time) and a remix of the theme by Ministry. The soundtrack website has run website contests as well as playing previews of the soundtrack CD's.

Spin-off

According to an article in Entertainment Weekly, CBS is currently developing an NCIS spin-off series. Filming is scheduled to start in February 2009, with the characters introduced in an NCIS episode this year. The characters listed were: Callen, Clara Macy, Nate "Doc" Getz, Kensi Lo, Sam Hanna, and Dominic Vaile. Crew members will include Michael B. Kaplan, Lev L. Spiro, Jerry London, Sheldon Epps and Mark Saraceni.

LL Cool J & Chris O'Donnell are in final talks to join the "NCIS" spinoff, according to EW's Michael Ausiello, "The 38-year-old O'Donnell would play Callen, a role previously described as 'a human Transformer who can change personas as easily as you or I change clothes.' The 41-year-old LL, meanwhile, is circling the role of Sam Hanna, an ex-Navy SEAL who recently completed stints in both Afghanistan and Iraq."

Louise Lombard, Peter Cambor and Daniela Ruah were confirmed to be cast as leads of the new spin-off. Playing the female lead (called "Clara"), a psychologist (called "Nate") and forensic investigator (called "Kensi") respectively, they will appear on-screen for the first time in an episode of NCIS that airs in the spring, followed by a pilot of the new series.

External links

• Official NCIS homepage at CBS
• Website - NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack
• NCIS at IMDb
• Template:TV.com show
• NCIS at TV Guide
• "NCIS" at Yahoo! TV
• The real-life NCIS