If you're the type of person who's always telling yourself that one day you'll buckle down and watch all of NCIS, Netflix has great news for you to kick-start your marathon. This month, the streaming platform is adding the earlier seasons of the long-running series to its catalog, and you will finally be able to go back and discover how it all began in 2003. The first five seasons of the procedural series will become available on the platform on January 23.
If you're unfamiliar with the gist of NCIS: the show follows special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that deal with high-visibility crimes that are directly or indirectly tied to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The show was originally led by Mark Harmon (Freaky Friday), who played Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs for nineteen seasons. He was closely followed by Michael Weatherly (Bull), Pauley Perrette (Broke) and David McCallum (Sapphire & Steal).
One thing that you might not know is that NCIS could never have become what it is today if CBS hadn't taken a chance on it. Initially, the TV series wasn't a hit — from 2003 to 2005, it felt like people barely knew of the show. It was only after Season 3 that NCIS began to gain traction, and it escalated so much that, in later seasons, NCIS became one of the most watched TV programs in the U.S. Not by chance, the series spawned a slate of spin-offs that include NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans.
Is 'NCIS' Still Going?
Image via CBS
Yes, the original show, and its sprawling franchise, are very much alive. Currently rolling out episodes from Season 22, the series now has Gary Cole (The Good Wife) as Supervisory Special Agent Alden Parker, along with Sean Murray (Hocus Pocus) as Special Agent Timothy McGee and Wilmer Walderrama (That '70s Show) as Nick Torres. NCIS was created by Donald P. Bellisario and Don McGill, who also worked on several other landmark shows, such as Magnum P.I., CSI and Quantum Leap.
For fans who want to go back even further than Season 1, CBS created NCIS: Origins, a new series that debuted in 2024 and follows Leroy Jethro Gibbs (this time played by Austin Stowell) in his early years, when he was dealing with the death of his family. Harmon returns as narrator, and the series recently revealed how Gibbs and Franks (Kyle Schmid) first bonded.
You will be able to stream the first five seasons of NCIS on Netflix on January 23.
