Vanessa Lachey to star in NCIS: Hawai'i

The NCIS franchise—the unstoppable, unkillable, inescapable TV procedural juggernaut that capitalizes cruelly on our shared obsession with crimes that take place on or near the water—is now headed even further afield. Which is to say that THR is reporting this evening that CBS is moving forward on the long-in-development NCIS: Hawai’i, with BH90210's Vanessa Lachey stepping up to become the franchise’s first female lead.

As with previous spin-offs Los Angeles and New Orleans (to say nothing of the just-renewed mothership show, still the most-watched scripted drama on TV), Hawai’i concerns itself with an elite department of the Navy’s beloved Boat Crimes division, in this case based out of Pearl Harbor. (It’s not actually called “Boat Crimes,” that’s just how we always file it in our heads.) Lachey will play Jane Tennant, whose major character traits are…Actually, you know what? Let’s just go ahead and paste in the studio description here:

A woman in a male-dominated profession, she’s thrived in a system that’s pushed back every step of the way through equal parts confidence and strategy. She’s also a mother raising her children mostly on her own and has to balance her duty to her kids and her country.

Lachey will be joined on the series by Yasmine Al-Bustami (the tough up-and-comer not afraid to bend the rules to get things done) and Jason Antoon (playing the all-important Says What’s On The Computer Man). Meanwhile, showrunning duties will be handled by Chris Silber, whose experiences on the soon-to-be-shuttered NCIS: New Orleans were apparently positive enough that everyone involved felt comfortable handing him the reins on the brand new show even as his current one sails off into the sunset.