Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly will share the screen again as Gibbs and DiNozzo on next week’s “NCIS: Origins,” ending a decade-long wait for fans of the CBS franchise.
Variety reported that the two actors return as Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Tony DiNozzo in the Tuesday, Oct. 20 episode of “NCIS: Origins,” airing at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
It will be the first time Harmon and Weatherly have appeared together as those characters in 10 years. They last shared the screen in the Season 13 finale of the original “NCIS,” when Tony left the agency.
The pair spent 13 seasons working side by side on the hit procedural. For longtime viewers, the Gibbs-DiNozzo pairing was the show’s backbone, mentor and wise-cracking junior agent, case after case.
In the new episode, Gibbs returns to NCIS’ D.C. headquarters. He seeks DiNozzo’s help after being shot by unknown assailants.
Weatherly is back in the “NCIS” world this season as Tony, now framed as the new NCIS director. He rejoined the main series cast when “NCIS” returned for Season 24 on Oct. 6.
Harmon remains tightly tied to “NCIS: Origins.” He serves as an executive producer, narrates the series, and appears in all of the show’s episodes this season. His present-day storyline connects to a mystery from Gibbs’s days at Camp Pendleton in the 1990s.
Austin Stowell stars as young Gibbs in the early 1990s, before the events of the original series. The Origins cast also includes Kyle Schmid, Mariel Molino, Tyla Abercrumbie, Diany Rodriguez, and Caleb Foote.
The spinoff is not running on nostalgia alone. CBS said the Season 3 premiere on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 10 p.m. ET averaged 4.39 million viewers. That was up 20% from its premiere a year earlier, and it ranked as the No. 1 broadcast show in its slot.
CBS Studios produces the series. Executive producers include David J. North, Mark Harmon, Sean Harmon, Michele Greco, and Eric Christian Olsen.
A social media teaser from the show has already gone up on Instagram ahead of the Oct. 20 airdate, signaling the network wants eyes on the reunion.
Network television still knows how to reward loyalty. Bring back Gibbs and DiNozzo, skip the lecture, and let a proven American franchise do what it does best.
