NCIS

NCIS
NCIS intertitle
Also known as	Navy NCIS, Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Naval CIS
Format	Police procedural Drama
Created by	Donald Bellisario Don McGill
Starring	Mark Harmon Michael Weatherly Cote de Pablo (2005–) Pauley Perrette Sean Murray (2004-) Rocky Carroll (2008-) David McCallum Sasha Alexander (2003–2005) Lauren Holly (2005–2008)
Theme music composer	Numeriklab
Opening theme	NCIS Theme
Composer(s)	Matt Hawkins Maurice Jackson Neil Martin
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	143 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Shane Brennan Donald Bellisario Chas. Floyd Johnson
Producer(s)	David Bellisario Avery C. Drewe Mark Harmon
Location(s)	Santa Clarita, CA
Cinematography	Billy Webb
Running time	approx. 42–44 minutes
Production company(s)	Belisarius Productions Paramount Television (2003-2006) CBS Paramount Television (2006-2009) CBS Television Studios (2009-present)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	September 23, 2003 – present
Chronology
Related shows	NCIS: Los Angeles JAG
External links
Official website

NCIS (also known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service) is an American police procedural drama 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 (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 six full seasons and has gone into syndicated reruns on USA Network, Sleuth and Ion Television. Donald Bellisario, who created JAG as well as the well-known series Magnum, P.I. and Quantum Leap, is co-creator and executive producer of NCIS.

NCIS was originally referred to as "Navy NCIS" during season one but "Navy" was later dropped from the title as it was redundant. NCIS returned for a seventh season on September 22, 2009^[1] at 8:00 p.m. EST and was followed by its spin-off series NCIS: Los Angeles starring Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J.^[2]

Premise

NCIS 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 United States) as being distinguished by its comedy elements, ensemble acting and character-driven plots.

The actual 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. The 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” in the various episodes is led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Gibbs’s team is composed of, in addition to Gibbs himself, Special Agent and Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) and Special Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), who replaced Caitlin "Kate" Todd (Sasha Alexander) when she was shot by Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin) at the end of season two. Ari himself was then killed by his own half-sister Ziva at the beginning of season three. The team is assisted in their investigations by Chief Medical Examiner Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum), Forensic Specialist Abigail "Abby" Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) and Assistant Medical Examiner James "Jimmy" Palmer (Brian Dietzen). There have been intimations that Palmer may actually be a criminal mole working to undermine the efforts of Gibbs's team, but no clear indications have been made either way.

The NCIS is currently led by Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll). The first Director seen in the series, Thomas Morrow (Alan Dale), left after being promoted to Deputy Director of DHS. Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly) was appointed Director after Morrow; she was killed in a shootout at the end of the fifth season, thus making Vance the director of the whole organization.

Main cast

Production

Name

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 and parodied as "Navy CSI," something the show itself referenced in the first episode).^[3]
• After its successful first season, the name of the series was shortened to NCIS.

Filming location

NCIS is set in the Washington, D.C. area but is filmed in Santa Clarita, California.^[4]

• 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.^[5] Due to a disagreement with series star Mark Harmon, Bellisario's duties as show runner/head writer were to be tasked to long-time show collaborators, including co-executive producer Chas. Floyd Johnson and Shane Brennan, with Bellisario retaining his title as Executive producer.^[6]

Episodes

Six seasons of NCIS have been aired, with the sixth season ending on May 19, 2009. The seventh season began airing on September 22, 2009. As of October 20, 2009, a total of 143 episodes have aired.

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.

• NCIS became 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 to date in the Season 7 episode "Reunion", averaging 21.37 million viewers. It won its time slot on September 29, 2009 in households (12.9/21), viewers (21.37m), adults 25-54 (6.4/17), and adults 18-49 (4.8/14).^[13]

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.^[14]
• The show ranked number thirteen in DVR playback (2.743 million viewers), according to Nielsen prime DVR lift data from February 9–15, 2009.^[15]
• The show ranked number nine in DVR playback (3.007 million viewers), according to Nielsen prime DVR lift data from April 6–12, 2009.^[16]

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.^[17]
• The show ranked number ten (4.535 million viewers), twelve (4.264 million viewers), thirteen (4.221 million viewers), fifteen (4,161 million viewers), seventeen (4.132 million viewers), and twenty (4.081 million viewers) in the list of Nielsen Ratings top twenty most-watched cable shows for the week ending March 1, 2009.^[18]
• The show ranked sixteen (4.091 million viewers), seventeen (4.084 million viewers), eighteen (4.072 million viewers), and twenty (4.006 million viewers) in the list of Nielsen Ratings top twenty most-watched cable shows for the week ending March 29, 2009.^[19]
• The show ranked number five (4.492 million viewers), six (4.467 million viewers), eight (4.394 million viewers), nine (4.214 million viewers), fifteen (3.962 million viewers), and seventeen (3.8.58 million viewers) in the list of Nielsen Ratings top twenty most-watched cable shows for the week ending May 3, 2009.^[20]
• The show ranked number three (4.82 million viewers), six (4.38 million viewers), ten (3.82 million viewers), eleven (3.88 million viewers), and fourteen (3.87 million viewers) in the list of Nielsen Ratings top fifteen most-watched cable shows for the week ending November 1, 2009.^[21]

DVD releases

The first six seasons of NCIS have been released as full-season boxed sets in Regions 1, 2 and 4. In Germany (which belongs to Region 2), each of season 1 - 4 was released in two DVD-boxes. The first season DVD release omits the two part introductory episode that aired as part of the eighth season of JAG.

Soundtrack

CBS Records released the show's first soundtrack on February 10, 2009.^[37] The Official TV Soundtrack is a two-disc, 22-track 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^[38] (available commercially for the first time) and a remix of the theme by Ministry. The set also includes songs performed by series regulars Pauley Perrette and Cote de Pablo.

A sequel to the soundtrack was released on November 3, 2009. NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack; Vol. 2 is a single disc, 12 track set that covers songs (many previously unreleased) featured throughout the seventh season of the show, including one recording titled "Bitter and Blue" by Weatherly, as well as two songs used in previous seasons.

Spin-off

CBS has picked up an NCIS spin-off series with the title NCIS: Los Angeles.^{[39][40][41][42]} Filming began in February 2009, with the characters introduced in a two-part NCIS episode entitled "Legend" which aired on April 28, 2009 and May 5, 2009.^[40] The characters listed were: G. Callen, Lara Macy, Nate "Doc" Getz, Kensi Blye, and Sam Hanna.^[43] Crew members will include Michael B. Kaplan, Lev L. Spiro, Jerry London, Sheldon Epps and Mark Saraceni.^[44]

Chris O'Donnell plays the lead character, G. Callen.^[45] His primary cast-mate, LL Cool J, plays the role of Special Agent Sam Hanna, an ex-Navy SEAL, who works in the undercover unit of NCIS in Los Angeles, and is also fluent in Arabic and an expert on Middle Eastern culture."^[41] Louise Lombard, Peter Cambor, and Daniela Ruah were confirmed to be cast as leads of the new spin-off, playing the female lead (called "Lara"), a psychologist (called "Nate") and forensic investigator (called "Kensi") respectively.^[43] Linda Hunt acts out the role of the superior to whom Callen and Hanna both report, Henrietta "Hetty" Lange, Operations Manager of the NCIS's Office of Special Projects.

Characters from NCIS have appeared in the spin-off; Leon Vance has a recurring role and Abby Sciuto appeared in the episode "Killshot".

International distribution

• Sat.1 - (Germany)
• Global TV - (Canada)
• FX (UK) and Five - UK and Ireland (With FX (UK) carrying the new episodes. Currently with Season 7.)
• RTÉ - Ireland
• Network Ten - Australia
• Veronica and SBS 6 - the Netherlands
• ORF 1- Austria
• La Sexta - (Spain)^[46]
• Dizimax- Turkey
• TV3 Slovenia - Slovenia
• TV2 (Hungary) - Hungary

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: NCIS (TV series)

• Official NCIS homepage at CBS
• NCIS at the Internet Movie Database
• Website - NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack
• NCIS at TV Guide
• "NCIS" at Yahoo! TV
• The real-life NCIS
• NCIS at Allmovie
• NCIS at TV.com