It might seem difficult to believe that despite the staggering ratings “NCIS” has attracted over the years, there are people who have not seen the procedural drama. Knowing there were fans and those in the dark was something showrunners and co-executive producers Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North had to deal with in creating “NCIS: Origins.”
The series – airing at 10 p.m. Mondays on CBS – deals with the early days of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), the no-nonsense boss of the team on “NCIS.” Fans of the series know Gibbs carries a lot of emotional baggage, chiefly regarding the murder of his wife and daughter.
“NCIS: Origins” follows a young Gibbs (Austin Stowell) in 1991 where he begins his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NIS Camp Pendleton office. He tries to find his place on the team led by legend Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid).
What the team behind the series had to find was a balance of filling in blanks for those who know the franchise and being entertaining for those who don’t know Leroy Jethro Gibbs from Marla Gibbs.
“One of the principal things we wanted to do with this show was write it in a way where if you love ‘NCIS,’ and watched every episode for 20 years, you are going to learn something new about these characters,” North says. “But it was very, very important to us that if you had never seen a minute of the 20 seasons, this can be a show that you can tune in and say wow.
“You experience it in a different way, but it will still be quite a ride.”
North admits finding the balance was a very difficult task. Despite the work, it is a job that makes him feel very proud. He is happy when people tell him they didn’t start watching “NCIS: Origins” because of no history with the show. They were happy that when they tuned in, they realized no history with the show is necessary.
North joined the “NCIS” world in 2003 working as a writer and producer. The Indiana native left “NCIS” for a few years to develop such series as “Rizzoli & Isles,” “Scorpion” and “NCIS LA.” North returned home to “NCIS” in Season 14, becoming an executive producer and co-showrunner, jobs he holds with “NCIS: Origins.”
That knowledge came in handy as the team faced another situation with “NCIS: Origins” that came from the show being set in the early 90s. That meant a lot of the technical aspects that have become so prominent in “NCIS” could not be used as they had not been invented.
North and Monreal welcomed the less tech-savvy world.
“You want to tell strong cases. Her and I have always enjoyed diving into character,” North says. “Setting the show in the ‘90s where there are pay phones and there is no DNA, you are forced to really move these investigations along through your characters.
“When you don’t just have some DNA to pop up on a flat screen, you have to figure it out in a different way. Usually, you then learn a little bit more about the characters.”
One of the constants of the “NCIS” universe has been strong female characters. In the case of “Origins,” that falls to Mariel Molino whose character in “Origins” is a bright, savvy young woman who is always one step ahead of her teammates. Her aggressiveness and eye for detail are just a couple of her better traits. Molino explains when it comes to acting roles, she just goes with what is on the pages of the script.
“I do feel that [executive producer] Gina [Lucita Monreal] and [executive producer] David [North] were really good about building a very strong female,” Molino says. “She is someone who must go up against the boys at a time that is very male dominated. She just must be a little bit tougher than the rest of them in order to get the respect that she needs.”
Because “NCIS: Origins” is a prequel, the creative team did face certain limitations. That didn’t stop them from seeing a wide assortment of stories that could be told.
North says, “There definitely felt like there was this wide world. When we were working on the start of the show, we came up with this story of Gibbs losing his family.
“We always thought that there was something very interesting in that time period. We could touch on the Gibbs we got to know before he became that Gibbs. When this came about, I knew there would be a millions great stories to tell.”
All of the stories that have been told so far in season one are available on-demand on CBS and Paramount+.
