NCIS: Origins Casts Its Ducky & Abby Replacements For Gibbs’ Prequel Team

The prequel NCIS: Origins casts its Abby and Ducky replacements for Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Mike Franks’ prequel team. After the divisive cancelation of NCIS: Hawai’i, CBS is once again expanding its top-rated procedural franchise. This time, however, it is a prequel narrative with the origin story of Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs. NCIS: Origins has recast young Gibbs with Austin Stowell, who will play the character in the ’90s, during his first decade in the agency under Mike Franks’ (Kyle Schmid) tutelage. Aside from the pair and Diany Rodriguez’s Vera Strickland, the rest of the squad are new characters.

A new report from Variety reveals that NCIS: Origins has cast its version of Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto and David McCallum’s Ducky Mallard with Bobby Moynihan and Lori Petty, respectively. Moynihan will portray Woodrow “Woody” Browne, “the wildly overworked senior chemist and director of the NIS Forensic Lab, who compensates for his lack of sleep with an offbeat sense of humor.” Meanwhile, Petty will play Dr. Lenora Friedman, “a seasoned pathologist at the San Diego Medical Examiner’s Office.”