'NCIS: Origins' Impresses Critics

         On October 14, 2024, CBS premiered 'NCIS: Origins', which has earned predominantly positive reviews from critics, currently holding at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. "NCIS: Origins" follows a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs in 1991, years prior to the events of "NCIS." In the series, Gibbs starts his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NCIS Camp Pendleton office where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks." The ensemble cast includes Mark Harmon, Austin Stowell, Kyle Schmid, Mariel Molino, and Tyla Abercrumbie. But what did the critics say?

        Joel Keller of Decider says, "NCIS: Origins is a solid NCIS prequel that promises some backstory for Gibbs while introducing us to how the agency operated when even other government agencies had no idea it existed." Adding, Stowell brings Harmon’s stoicism to the younger Gibbs, but one whose anger is still just under that stoic surface. In a lot of ways, though, this NCIS might be centered on Schmid’s character Mike Franks as much as it is on Gibbs. Schmid is somewhat old-fashioned, but with his quirks — he listens to power-pop ballads before interrogating suspects. He seems to have a rebellious streak, but he also respects the chain of command. He will of course be Gibbs’ mentor at the agency, and it seems like there’s a backstory developing with him and his significant other, but what that story is is largely undefined in the first two episodes. What the show also needs to stop doing is leaning on its period for atmosphere. We don’t need to hear cars blaring hits from the time period, or Randolf highlighting the new IBM PS/2 with the color monitor that is installed in the office. Gen Xers like us roll our eyes at these references, while the younger viewers (does NCIS have younger viewers?) don’t really care. Monreal and North need to let those references fade into the background; the only good time to reference the time period is to point out how investigations differed in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone era. Anything other than that makes the show feel like it’s trying to be an episode of The Goldbergs."

Photo by Tile Merchant Ireland on Unsplash

       Chris Willman of Variety notes, "As it turns out, NCIS: Origins does have a raison d’etre that doesn’t depend entirely on quickie corpse-of-the-week cases or on Shannon-and-Kelly redux." Continuing, "Watching Stowell land in the role of Gibbs presents a bigger hurdle. Even his entrance music asks fans to reconsider the hero they thought they knew: He drives onto the Camp Pendleton base cranking up the Pearl Jam. Is that just to establish some period flavor, or is it really meant to blow our minds that Gibbs was once an Eddie Vedder kinda guy? (Franks, for his part, is introduced with some circa-1991 Hank Jr., rather on the nose.) Stowell seems like a hunkier, taller, more chiseled Gibbs than the one we met deeper into middle age, and indeed, the women in the office meet his first arrival at their headquarters with quick but unmistakably lustful double-takes. If anything, Stowell resembles a Brian Dietzen with a bigger neck more than he does Harmon — and he occasionally acts like him, too, having to play the guy whose mouth is sometimes agape as he is educated into the ways of gruesome corpses and crime-solving. Stowell isn’t that much taller than Harmon in real life, but he seems to tower over every other cast member here, a beefy athlete thrust into the role of preternaturally intuitive agent. He’s so un-Harmon-like in most ways, in fact, that it almost makes “Origins” feel more like a reboot than a prequel."

       Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Line writes, "The 1991 setting, as you can imagine, lends itself to not just Asteroids and Galaga machines in the NIS break room, but all manner of “retro” technology and crimesolving methods. (Do not ask Franks how to start up the newly delivered PC, and do not expect fingerprint analysis back from Woody inside of two days!) A trip to a mall in Episode 3 doesn’t distract with ’90s fashion, but there are occasional needle drops — including a use of a Bangles tune that took me a second viewing to truly appreciate."