I Completely Forgot The NCIS Pilot Actually Happened In A Different Show

NCIS has become a powerhouse franchise for CBS, but its original pilot was actually part of another show that wasn’t able to maintain the same long-lasting success. The NCIS franchise has now spawned five spinoffs, taking the team of naval investigators to different cities and countries. In total, CBS’s franchise has netted more than 1000 episodes across 46 seasons to date, and there’s no sign of NCIS slowing down.

Yet NCIS found its start through a backdoor pilot in JAG, another legal action drama series that initially aired on NBC but was dropped after one season and picked up by CBS. The show then went on to become a popular series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with JAG airing another nine seasons on its new network. JAG was conceived as a hybrid of Top Gun meets A Few Good Men and followed the stories of military lawyers and officers navigating complex legal cases, high-stakes missions, and personal dilemmas within the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.