'NCIS’ Officially Reaches a Series-High Thanks to a Major Formula Change

NCIS may be going through a renaissance. While CBS’ long-running procedural series hasn’t waned much in popularity over the years, the 2026-27 television season has thus far been a very eventful one for the wider franchise. For one, LL COOL J has been given a permanent home once more with the latest spin-off, NCIS: New York, pairing him with a new partner in Scott Caan and a fresh team following the cancellation of NCIS: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, NCIS: Origins Season 3 has Mark Harmon back in front of the camera for a storyline that sees Gibbs’ past catch up to him and has reunited him with a few of his old teammates, including Michael Weatherly‘s Tony DiNozzo and Emily Wickersham‘s Ellie Bishop.

As far as the flagship is concerned, however, the most impactful difference has been the return of the prodigal son. With his Paramount+ spin-off, NCIS: Tony and Ziva, alongside Cote de Pablo, cancelled at the end of last year, Weatherly returned to NCIS for much more than just a guest appearance or a season-long storyline in Season 24. Tony now has a new position at the Washington Navy Yard, taking up the vacant position of NCIS director left behind by the tragic death of Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) in the show’s climactic 500th episode. Having Gibbs’ former protégé as the new man in the chair is more than just a full-circle moment — it’s brought new life to the procedural.

Tony’s return, combined with the momentum of the spin-offs, powered the NCIS Season 24 premiere to an impressive 6.45 million viewers back in October, officially ranking it as the most-watched program on broadcast television that night. Not only did it rank well against other shows, but it also soared to a high the mothership hasn’t reached since 2024 with the Season 21 finale. It marked a 20% increase in viewership from Season 23’s average, part of an overall 39% increase for the entirety of the NCIS slate. The momentum has carried over too, with Nielsen recently finding the series still ranking among the top five broadcast series with 10.1 million viewers in live plus 7 days of multiplatform viewership.

Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely
different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you
would be having within a week.

You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts
works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war
so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting
you.

• You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within
  about five minutes and has never stopped.
• This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every
  single person in your life would be.
• The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you
  do with things you love.
• The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the
  arguments are about to start all over again.

You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where
somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth
rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.

• You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something
  enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
• This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly
  alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
• Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all,
  which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
• Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make
  that argument.

You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one
where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of
it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.

• You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a
  grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
• Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly
  1980 with no sign of resolution.
• The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score
  and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
• You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good
  time.

You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the
argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in
space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.

• You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major
  franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
• The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that
  makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
• Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is
  appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
• You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you
  will always find somebody willing to have it.

Will ‘NCIS’ Keep Tony DiNozzo Around Past Season 24?

• Image via Robert Voets/CBS

• Image via Paramount

• Image via Paramount

• Image via CBS

Image via Robert Voets/CBS

Image via Paramount

Image via Paramount

Image via CBS

It’s clear that, at least in the short term, fans are excited to have Tony and Weatherly back in such a symbolic way. His return even made for an especially poignant reunion between him and Gibbs, in which his former boss made it known how proud he is of him. The question on everyone’s mind now is how long this stint will last. Weatherly initially departed NCIS back in Season 13 to take on new challenges, namely the CBS legal drama Bull, but that was ten years ago. Showrunner Steven D. Binder recently indicated that his role on the procedural might continue beyond the initial plan, though it’s too early to say for certain whether “Director DiNozzo” will be a regular presence for the long haul.

“We take these things one season at a time. On the other hand, you blink and it’s Season 24. So I don’t really know. Network television is a real hand-to-mouth endeavor in terms of getting these scripts on time. We’re doing 20 episodes in a season where a streamer does eight episodes in 25 months. So we’re taking it one step at a time. Certainly, it’s been really great having him in that chair, and I don’t see any reason why it should slow, but I don’t know that we’re looking quite that far yet.”

“We take these things one season at a time. On the other hand, you blink and it’s Season 24. So I don’t really know. Network television is a real hand-to-mouth endeavor in terms of getting these scripts on time. We’re doing 20 episodes in a season where a streamer does eight episodes in 25 months. So we’re taking it one step at a time. Certainly, it’s been really great having him in that chair, and I don’t see any reason why it should slow, but I don’t know that we’re looking quite that far yet.”

NCIS Season 24 airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the future of the franchise as the season continues to unfold.