The crossover event that we didn’t see coming is almost here, and it airs on a special night. NCIS and NCIS: Origins will bring a two-part story on Veterans’ Day, and this is not an event that you’ll want to skip over.
However, you will need to make sure you get a slightly different time for the two shows in your calendar. That’s especially if you usually only watch one of the two shows. You’ll need to tune into both hours, and you’ll need to watch them in the right order.
NCIS: Origins will air first for one week only
On Tuesday, Nov. 11, NCIS: Origins will take the first timeslot of the night. After all, it’s where the story begins. The NIS team will head to a small town in California, where there are plenty of secrets and a lot of animosity toward federal agents. However, Franks, Gibbs, and the rest of the team want to get justice for a Naval officer who has died under mysterious circumstances.
The end of the episode promises to have a knock-on effect that is set to last decades. In fact, it’s probably only in the second hour that the full answers will be revealed, and it’s possible that some limitations of crime-solving in the 1990s are part of the reason for that.
After the NCIS: Origins hour, we’ll head to the present day with NCIS, with an inmate escaping from prison with just three weeks left on his sentence. That pulls the NCIS team in, especially when they find out that it’s linked to the murder of a Naval officer in the 1990s. With it being one of Gibbs’s first cases, McGee, especially, is sure to want to get to the bottom of it, plus there's another returning face we can't wait to see.
NCIS will return to its regular timeslot the following week
This switch isn’t permanent, although I have always thought that it would make sense to have the earlier-set series on first. The CBS schedule for the week of Nov. 17 makes it clear that NCIS is back in its regular timeslot from that week with NCIS: Origins following it.
In a way, I do wish that the two shows could have just interconnected into one long two-hour episode. We could see the past play out at the same time as the present day, which is something a lot of shows do through flashbacks, and is even something NCIS: Origins did on season 2 episode 4 to explain more of Mike’s background.
In all of this change, there is one thing that will remain the same. NCIS: Sydney will continue to close out the night both weeks, not getting a part in the crossover event.
The NCIS franchise airs on Tuesdays starting at 8/7c on CBS.
Get the latest NCIS updates and much more with Precinct TV.