Mark Harmon Just Admitted The Original Version Of NCIS Was Nothing Like The Show Fans Actually Got

The 2024 TV schedule saw Mark Harmon returning to the NCIS franchise via the Gibbs prequel series NCIS: Origins after he departed amid Season 19 of the Mothership series. Harmon joined the franchise as Leroy Jethro Gibbs very early on. He was even one of few to appear in the two-part backdoor pilot on JAG over 20 years ago. As one of the franchise’s OGs, he’s in the know on various BTS tidbits of its conception. With that, Harmon just shared what the original concept for the show was, and it’s quite different from the procedural that made it to air.

A lot of procedurals included episodes based on true stories, with Law & Order being famous for doing “ripped from the headlines” cases. And it’s more than likely that NCIS has also taken a page or two of out of the real Navy’s book of cases, but the fact that all episodes were going to be based on real situations is still surprising. This probably would have made the format and overall storytelling significantly different from the jump as well. Why the producers decided to shift to the usual murder/case-a-week format is unknown, but it’s hard to argue with the results.