TV Talk: Gibbs gets prequel treatment in ‘NCIS: Origins’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.

Set in 1991 when the precursor to NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) takes up offices in repurposed World War II barracks at Camp Pendleton, the first thing one notices on the set of CBS’s “NCIS: Origins” is the fake palm tree outside the Quonset hut set. It’s an odd palm tree that only has a trunk that rises eight feet and then just stops. That’s Hollywood magic/trickery at work.

Because of the period setting, more Hollywood magic will be required on “Origins,” including digging for period-appropriate props. And in the storytelling, there are no DNA tests available. In those respects, it’s quite a different world viewers enter in “NCIS: Origins” (9-11 p.m. Oct. 14, KDKA-TV).

“Because we don’t have the DNA, we don’t have the same kind of forensics, it boils down to character even in our case of the week,” said “NCIS: Origins” co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal during CBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association summer 2024 press tour. “We’ll be able to go home with our investigators and see how their personal lives are affecting their professional lives, which will be a new element that we’re really pushing into the show because it’s going to allow for a deeper investment in our characters and in our world.”

In other ways, this “NCIS” is similar: Leroy Jethro Gibbs is younger and played primarily by a new actor, Austin Stowell, but Gibbs remains the hero, even if he’s a newbie at the series’ start when he’s recruited to join NIS (Naval Investigative Service), NCIS’s forerunner.

Mark Harmon, as older Gibbs, returns to narrate “Origins” episodes.

“With the narration, it’s just been so wonderful to be able to write what that character is thinking,” Monreal said. “He’s such a man of few words, (so it’s been good) to be able to get inside Gibbs’ head and hear how he’s feeling.”

Harmon even appears in newly shot footage that wraps around the “Origins” two-hour premiere. For now, these older Gibbs visuals are a one-off with no further plans for Harmon to return on-camera. Week-to-week, he’ll just narrate the adventures of a younger Gibbs who’s still reeling from the deaths of his wife and daughter.

Inspiration for “NCIS: Origins” came to Sean Harmon, Mark Harmon’s son, when he worked on the 400th episode of the original series. Sean Harmon played young Gibbs in flashbacks on the original “NCIS” and is an executive producer on “Origins.”

“Something my dad has always (said) about the Gibbs character is (that he’s) a guy who really has got something broken inside, a guy who at one point in his life is very much at risk of going down a much darker path,” Sean Harmon said. “What about this job made that choice different, (taking) a more honorable path as opposed to one of oblivion? I got to portray him as the bright and bushy-tailed young Marine who nothing horrible had happened to yet. The man you all know from the mother­ship series is essentially a guy who’s had 30 years to come to terms with some serious trauma. But that guy in the middle is a very, very interesting character. It’s a guy with none of the answers and all of the trauma. It got the wheels turning as to, what could this be?”

For Stowell, he had to prepare for his audition to play a young Gibbs before he met Mark Harmon.

“I was going off of what was on the (script) page,” Stowell said. “This is a Gibbs that is dealing with the loss of his wife and child. This is not the Gibbs that you know, that the world knows right now, the team leader who’s always so put together. … This is somebody who’s searching for his identity, trying to find himself and ground himself back in the world. It wasn’t until I got in the room for my screen test that Mark came up to me and said two words that I’ll remember forever: ‘Trust yourself.’ ”

While Monreal teases a “fresh, interesting and edgier tone,” “Origins” co- showrunner David J. North assures “NCIS” fans the franchise’s lighter elements remain intact, too.

“What makes ‘NCIS’ so special is still there with the characters and the humor,” North said.

That includes NIS team members like agent Randy Randolf (Caleb Foote), a series regular, and recurring characters played by former “Saturday Night Live” star Bobby Moynihan (as NIS forensic lab boss Woody Brown) and “Tank Girl” star Lori Petty (as Dr. Lenora Friedman, an assistant medical examiner).

Foote, a relative newcomer (“Made for Love,” “The Kids Are Alright”), seems poised to be the show’s breakout character, thanks to Randy’s charming, puppy dog-like enthusiasm and comic relief potential.

“From my (audition) tape, they thought I was gonna be a little bit more nerdy,” Foote said while giving a tour of the show’s forensics lab set on Stage 5 of the Paramount Pictures Studios in July. “Then they met me in person and were like, ‘This guy is stacked,’ talking about my muscles. Then (producers) were like, ‘OK, maybe he’s a more capable detective.’ ”

Expect few punchlines from Randy but more observations that fall somewhere in the comedic realm.

“There are scenes of me kicking in the door with the team,” Foote said, “but my character will just offer some levity in a world where the themes can get dark.”