Naval murders to get their own Young Sheldon as CBS orders NCIS: Origins
Mark Harmon will produce and narrate the series, which will see a young Gibbs solving boat crimes in his early NCIS days
It’s not news to note that CBS’s NCIS has been ridiculously, stupidly successful for decades at this point, even without the bizarre-but-true qualifier “for a spin-off of the TV series JAG.” Although it’s no longer the most watched show on network TV—a distinction it secured back in 2012—the series is still going strong, with its 21st season of dastardly naval criminals set to debut next month.
Now, Deadline reports, CBS has issued a straight-to-series order for yet another spin-off of the flagship series, and sound the sirens, because we’ve got a Young Sheldon situation on our hands. That’s right: The network has just picked up NCIS: Origins, which will detail the early days of Mark Harmon’s character Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who departed the series during its 19th season. Harmon will serve as an executive producer on the series, and, as is apparently required of shows like this (looking at you, The Winchesters), will also serve as its narrator, because it’s a nice way to turn like three hours in a recording booth into ridiculous amounts of money while other people have to run around actually solving boat murders.
This is actually a family affair, too: Harmon is producing the show with his son Sean, who sporadically played a younger version of Gibbs on the mothership show—but won’t be taking on the job for the spin-off itself. The show will follow the fledgling special agent under the command of Mike Franks, a character played in a recurring role by Muse Watson in the original series. We’re going to go ahead and assume, based on the real Harmon’s age, that the series will be set in the ’70s or ’80s, which means some poor bastard is about to set himself up for direct facial comparisons to 1980s Mark Harmon (People’s Sexiest Man Alive, 1986!), but such is the fate of Young Sheldons everywhere, we guess.