The weather might be cooling down, but things are definitely heating up on NCIS this season.
The veteran CBS procedural is returning for a remarkable 23rd season — premiering Tuesday, Oct. 14 at 8/7c — and it’s showing no signs of slowing down, with Alden Parker still reeling from the murder of his father Roman in the season finale. But was mob boss Carla Marino really responsible? Well, that’s just one of the things we’ll find out when Season 23 arrives.
TVLine spoke to NCIS executive producer Steven D. Binder for our annual Fall TV Preview, and he gave us lots of scoop on Parker’s revenge tour, the arrival of his sister (played by Nancy Travis), new developments in the ongoing Jimmy-and-Jessica saga and some “surprising” new additions to the NCIS family.
TVLINE | From what I hear, you’re getting right into it when the season opens. That it’s super continuous.
Super continuous. A lot of heat, a lot of action, and we’re hoping to not let up. Even if it kills us.
TVLINE | When you and I last spoke, you said you were debating whether the Carla Marino story would tie into the Lily mystery and the anomaly in Eleanor Parker’s death certificate. What did you end up deciding?
The more we thought about it, we thought, “Sure, there’s a surprise there, right?” Sometimes when you get further along, something opens up as a natural organic development. But in terms of us forcing it or bringing it there, it really felt like these should be two separate parts of this guy’s life.
TVLINE | What do you want to reveal about the nature of that anomaly in the death certificate, whatever it was that Jimmy clocked in the finale?
We’re going to unfold that onion a lot more quickly this time. We have a good story there. With a lot of these things, the audience gets ahead of the story on some level. But I can tell you that we’ve got some fun twists coming up. You’ll see some, and then you’ll realize that’s just the first step. We’re going to bring it to the present, so this won’t just be some esoteric history lesson in Alden Parker’s life. The theme of this season is “NCIS on Fire,” and I think the premiere episodes are going to illustrate that. We will do some standalones for sure, but a lot of what’s going to happen is just going to ignite our characters’ passions, whether that’s their passion for love, passion for revenge, passion for rescuing loved ones in danger, and Lily is going to be at the front and center of that, at least for Parker.
TVLINE | Can you say this much: Is Lily still alive?
I hope so.
TVLINE | We broke the Nancy Travis news. What can you tell us about her role as Alden’s sister Harriet?
Family dynamics are forged [very early on]. The Alden Parker that we know and see now is not how Alden Parker was as a child. We’ve gotten into his history a little bit: he was a troubled kid, he was in juvie home, he stole things. And that’s the dynamic that his sister grew up with. He was the bad kid, and she was the good kid, and they’re going to relive that between the two of them. She’s this super squared-away admiral, and then you’ve got Alden Parker, who’s got this “bad kid” seed, and those two are going to come to a head. And what’s funny about that is over Thanksgiving dinner is one thing; in the middle of a global crisis, the brother-sister bickering is very NCIS.
TVLINE | How large of a role will Rebecca De Mornay have this season?
We’re doing a two-parter [season premiere], and she will play a smaller part in the first one, but she will have a sizable role. We were introduced to [Carla] as the head of the Kansas City mob and a real bad person. But if you go back to the core of her pain, it was the loss of her son, which of course is a hurt you never get over, and that’s what we’re going to find drives her, the loss of family. Hopefully she’ll be a bad guy who’s a little more nuanced and relatable on some level by the time we’re done with her.
TVLINE | Any personal runners for any of the characters, aside from Alden?
Jimmy and Knight were dating [and then broke up], and we have struggled with how to continue that without being obvious or boring, and I think we’ve cracked that — between the two of them and maybe between the more of them, I’ll say. Not necessarily the two of them. So we’re going to play with that.
At some point, we hope to, I will say, expand the family of our characters in a somewhat surprising way. It’s always great to bring in new characters, whether it’s Parker’s sister or Knight’s sister or whatever it is, but in a way that you won’t see coming and will be shocking. One of the things we do is when we stretch, we try and play the reality of the stretch as real as possible.
We also have a runner we’ve been talking about and are starting to put into action where Kasie, a very competent, creative professional, builds something that ends up causing her a lot of trouble. We also just want to get Kasie out in the field a little more because Diona [Reasonover] is so great in every scene.
TVLINE | I have a reader wondering if Zane Holtz will be back as NCIS Special Agent Dale Sawyer.
He will be, he will be. Zane Holtz will be back, and it’s a fun one.
TVLINE | I found it a bit conspicuous that NCIS: Tony & Ziva takes place in “October 2025,” which is when you guys return. Will there be even an off-handed reference to [redacted NCIS: TIVA plot catalyst]?
I would love to do that, and I will tell you that I’m still trying to do something like that, but it’s very difficult, especially when we’ve been shooting and writing for months in advance and I had not been given that date. But that would be fantastic. I wish there’d been less secrecy surrounding that so we could have done more.
