When NCIS returns for its 14th season tonight, it will be the first episode without original cast member Michael Weatherly, who played very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. Rather, there will be two new faces — Special Agent Nicholas “Nick” Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and NCIS Special Agent Alexandra “Alex” Quinn (Jennifer Esposito) — joining the team, and later in the season, MI6 Officer Clayton Reeves (Duane Henry), who was introduced in the final episodes of Season 13, will return.
“It takes a lot of people for Michael Weatherly’s exit,” showrunner Gary Glasberg joked with Parade.com at the CBS TCA party to premiere the fall season. But more seriously, he added, “It’s not so much about replacing Michael, it’s about moving forward. I really wanted to do something different and something brash, and expanding on our group made a lot of sense. It’s new personalities and new characters, and even though the mix gets a little bit larger, it’s more fun for us.”
The first episode back will introduce the new characters through story when the NCIS team investigates a deadly car explosion in D.C. that connects to Torres, who disappeared six months previously while on a deep undercover assignment in Argentina. Then, Gibbs (Mark Harmon) asks Alex to shadow his team after rejecting eight agents she instructed and referred for the open position.
Following is the scoop from Glasberg on how the three new characters will fit into the already existing team of Gibbs, Timothy McGee (Sean Murray), Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham), Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette), Ducky (David McCallum) and Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen).
With such a large team now, does everybody work every week?
Pretty much. I can’t guarantee that there will be full, giant stories every week for each character, but it’s a team, and we’re finding ways to make that work for us.
Is Clayton going to be considered a probie?
Not really. Clayton Reeves is on loan from MI-6 much like Ziva was on loan from Mossad. So he’ll come in on Episode 5 and, basically, be a liaison to NCIS. Torres is a deep-cover agent who has been an agent for about eight years and has been working deep cover for a significant amount of time. Then Jennifer Esposito’s character started as a field agent and then went to work as an instructor at the training center, before Gibbs pulls her back in.
Do Torres and Gibbs know each other from before?
They do. They go back quite a ways. It’s really more of a mama bear-papa bear kind of relationship. The humor, the sparring, there’s a freshness I think you’re going to like quite a bit.
So Gibbs sees something in Torres but they don’t have a past together?
They do not. In fact, the really interesting thing is you can be a significantly established deep-cover agent within the agency and the other agents don’t even know who you are. So it’s unusual for us. Torres is cool and super physical and charming, but you’re going to get some funny as well.
With Tony gone, McGee moves up to be the senior agent. Is he still going to do all the tech stuff, or will he take on new tasks?
Nothing changes in terms of McGee’s specialty. The only thing that does change is that as senior field agent, there’s more responsibility. He has to carry himself a little differently and present himself a little differently, which Sean is really excited about and we’re having fun writing.
What can you tell us about cases?
Right out of the gate, we’ve got an undercover case that introduces the Torres character, and coincides with the introduction of Jennifer Esposito’s character as well. Then, as always, I like to reset and present more traditional episodes of NCIS for four or five episodes after. We’re absolutely doing that. I wanted people to see that it may be new cast members, but it’s the same show. That’s super important to me and to everyone involved. Also, we’ve got Robert Wagner coming back at one point. We figured out a way to have DiNozzo, Sr., so we’re excited about that.
What about Ellie’s mother, Lindsay Wagner?
Right now I don’t have any plans for Lindsay, but there will be a special Thanksgiving episode, and we’ll be meeting some other members of her brother Richard’s family. We met one brother; she’s got two more. So we’re having some fun with that. We’ve also got another young Ducky storyline on the horizon. I’m really pleased. We’ve got some terrific stuff coming up.
Anything special for Abby?
In the back half of the season, but we’ll have to talk more about that then. You’ll be seeing a lot of Abby Scuito.
NCIS premieres its 14th season tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
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