NCIS Season 21 will not premiere on CBS in May 2023

We’ve watched the first episode of NCIS Season 20. Now all eyes are on when NCIS Season 21 will premiere on CBS. It’s not coming this month.

Don’t worry; there are absolutely no spoilers in this post for the NCIS Season 20 finale. All we’re looking at is when the new season will air.

We know that NCIS Season 21 is happening. That isn’t surprising when you consider the live ratings, but it was good to see CBS confirm it would be back. Now eyes are on when the new season will premiere.

It is definitely not coming in May 2023. CBS doesn’t premiere big shows this time of year. People spend more time outside, so the broadcast networks wait until the fall. That’s what we’re looking at for this flagship series.

When will NCIS Season 21 premiere on CBS?

CBS has confirmed that the series will remain on Mondays in the fall. It will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT as usual. While a lot of fans struggle to pick between football and the show, it’s clear that CBS is happy with the ratings that the series is pulling in.

So, when in the fall will it premiere? This is the trickier part to work out. CBS usually doesn’t give premiere dates until June or July, but we can usually say in the last couple of weeks of September each year. That’s not the case this year.

The writers are on strike, and that strike is going to continue until the writers get a fair deal. While some shows had episodes that could be filmed already, not all did. Some writers weren’t even going to start talking about the new seasons until June. If the strike goes into June (and if SAG goes on strike too), we could see a big disruption to the fall schedule.

NCIS is available to stream on Paramount+.