IT'S OFFICIALLY THE END OF AN ERA FOR NCIS: EVERYTHING HAPPENING ACROSS AMERICA'S MOST DURABLE TV FRANCHISE

Thirty-Four Years, Twenty-Three Seasons, and a Universe in Transformation

In the crowded landscape of American network television, one show has outlasted almost everything thrown at it. NCIS premiered on CBS in September 2003, built itself into the most-watched drama on American television for years running, survived the departure of its original lead, spawned multiple spinoffs set across continents, and is now — in 2026 — entering what may be its most structurally transformative period since the day it first aired. The phrase "end of an era" gets used loosely in entertainment journalism, but in NCIS's case in 2026, it genuinely applies on multiple simultaneous fronts: a beloved director's 18-year run has ended with a death scene; the flagship show's in-universe agency is being shut down; its prequel series just redefined itself with the biggest real-world name change in the franchise's history; and the NCIS universe is expanding in an entirely new direction with a brand-new spinoff. It is, by almost any measure, a watershed moment for one of the longest-running drama franchises in the history of American television.

Here is the complete story.

The 500th Episode That Changed Everything: Leon Vance Is Dead

The single most emotionally significant moment of NCIS Season 23 aired on March 24, 2026. In an episode titled "All Good Things" — the franchise's landmark 500th episode — Rocky Carroll's Director Leon Vance was killed. After 18 years, nearly 400 episodes, and a run that made him one of the most quietly essential characters in the show's long history, Vance met his end while uncovering a conspiracy by a rival agency threatening to dismantle NCIS itself.

The death scene was constructed for maximum emotional impact. Vance exposes a double agent inside the organisation, is shot during the confrontation, and appears initially to have survived — before a dramatic reveal confirms he has died. The sequence that follows shows Vance in the afterlife, reunited with the beloved Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard — a gesture to fans, given that David McCallum, who played Ducky for 20 years, passed away in September 2023. The reunion of the two characters after death was the franchise's way of honouring McCallum's memory while giving Carroll the send-off his tenure deserved.

Carroll himself reflected on the magnitude of what 18 years on a single show means in the modern television landscape: "Eighteen seasons is rarefied air," he noted publicly, adding that the longevity of his run made the departure easier to accept. Before NCIS, Carroll had built his reputation through television and theater, including his celebrated role in the early-1990s Fox sitcom Roc — a series that aired episodes live during its second season, earning praise for its cultural authenticity and performances. His grounded, authoritative presence as Director Vance helped anchor NCIS through cast changes and evolving storylines that would have capsized a lesser character, and his exit leaves a genuine void in the franchise's continuity.

Season 23 contained 20 episodes, concluded on May 12, 2026, and included one additional notable departure: it was the final season to feature Rocky Carroll as a series regular. Carroll did, however, return briefly in the season finale for scenes set before his character's death — a farewell gesture that allowed the show to acknowledge just how much Vance had meant, one last time.

The In-Universe Shutdown That Isn't What It Looks Like

Alongside Carroll's exit, Season 23 delivered a storyline twist that sent fans into an immediate and understandable panic: an episode mid-season titled "In Too Deep" officially confirmed that the NCIS agency — the titular organisation around which 23 years of television have been built — is being shut down.

CBS swiftly and deliberately quelled fan alarm by confirming that the show itself would return for Season 24. The in-universe shutdown is a narrative device — a story arc that deals with the real-world political consequences of the same conspiracy that killed Vance, and one that will presumably be resolved, or partially resolved, as Season 24 unfolds. The show has done this before, building its tensions around the institutional threat to the organisation rather than letting it remain an unchanging procedural backdrop. Season 24, already officially ordered by CBS, is scheduled to air in the 2026-2027 television season, on Tuesdays at 8pm — the same timeslot NCIS held for its first 18 seasons, a return to its original home after some years elsewhere in the schedule.

"NIS" Becomes "NCIS": The Prequel's Defining Moment

If Season 23 of the flagship gave fans one major institutional shift, NCIS: Origins Season 2 gave them another — this one historical, and the most narratively significant moment in the prequel's entire run.

The NCIS: Origins finale, Episode 18 of Season 2, titled "Hollywood Ending" and aired May 5, 2026, depicts the in-universe moment when the Naval Investigative Service officially rebrands as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service — the name change that created the organisation fans have followed for 23 years. In CBS's fictional account, the rebrand is driven by the Camp Pendleton office and Special Agent-in-Charge Cliff Wheeler, who fights to save his team and his community amid reports of inappropriate conduct by military personnel. The event mirrors the actual real-world creation of NCIS, which launched in 1992 following a scandal that prompted the restructuring of NIS — meaning the show is depicting, within its drama, the actual historical moment its universe was born.

Austin Stowell, who plays a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the prequel, has carried a significant burden: stepping into a role defined for two decades by Mark Harmon's iconic performance, and doing it at a younger point in the character's life that Harmon never played on screen. The finale also delivers what fans had been waiting for — progress in the relationship between Gibbs and Special Agent Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino), a dynamic that has been carefully built across both seasons and is now set up for further development in Season 3.

NCIS: Origins will return for a third season in the 2026-2027 schedule — but notably, with a significantly reduced episode order. While Seasons 1 and 2 each contained 18 episodes, Season 3 has been ordered for just 10. The reason for the reduction is directly connected to what CBS is doing next.

The New Spinoff That's Reshaping the Entire Universe: NCIS: New York

The most significant structural development in the NCIS franchise in years is the announcement and production of an entirely new spinoff: NCIS: New York, starring LL Cool J and Scott Caan. The show has been ordered for 20 episodes for the 2026-2027 season, airing on Tuesdays following Season 24 of the flagship NCIS — the most-supported new series launch in CBS's network strategy for the coming year.

The pairing of LL Cool J and Scott Caan is immediately notable because both actors previously worked together on CBS's long-running Hawaii Five-0, where Caan played Detective Danny "Danno" Williams and LL Cool J made a memorable guest appearance. Their chemistry has clearly impressed the network enough to rebuild it in a new context. NCIS: New York will set the franchise in the city it has never previously called home — New York City — expanding the geographic footprint of a universe that has previously been anchored in Washington D.C. (the flagship), Los Angeles (NCIS: LA, which concluded in 2023), New Orleans (NCIS: New Orleans, which ended in 2021), Hawaii (NCIS: Hawai'i, which wrapped in 2024), and Sydney, Australia (NCIS: Sydney, currently in its third season).

The 20-episode order for NCIS: New York — compared to just 10 for Origins Season 3 — is CBS's clearest signal yet about which direction it is most invested in for the franchise's immediate future.

Ziva Returns — And Season 23 Revisits the Show's Golden Era

Season 23 also marked the return of Cote de Pablo's Ziva David, one of the most beloved characters in the franchise's history. Ziva had been a defining presence across Seasons 3 through 11, before a complex arc involving a faked death and eventual return in Seasons 17 and 18. Her Season 23 appearance — coming 20 years after she first debuted in the Season 3 two-parter "Kill Ari" — was structured as a deliberate echo of that original debut: Season 23 opened with a two-part episode, the first time since Season 3 that a new season began with a two-parter. The move allowed the show to revisit, and honour, one of the most creative periods of its long history.

Alongside Ziva's return, Season 23 also brought back three major figures for a Veterans Day crossover with Origins: Mark Harmon reprised his role as Leroy Jethro Gibbs — the first time the actor had appeared in the franchise since his Season 19 departure — alongside Roma Maffia (Vera Strickland) and Muse Watson (Mike Franks). The crossover, which spanned both the flagship and Origins, aired November 11, 2025, and gave fans who had been watching for decades the unexpected pleasure of seeing Harmon's Gibbs on screen alongside the younger version of his own character played by Stowell.

The Wider CBS Picture: An Industry Shifting Around NCIS

The NCIS franchise's own transformations are playing out against a CBS schedule that is itself in significant flux. The 2025-2026 season saw the cancellation and series finales of Watson (ending after two seasons), The Neighborhood (after eight), DMV (after one), and most symbolically, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after eight years — a cultural landmark in its own right. These endings, combined with the new beginnings represented by NCIS: New York and other new series, reflect a network in the middle of a significant programmatic reinvention.

For NCIS specifically, the period feels like the franchise equivalent of a controlled and deliberate renovation rather than a collapse: beloved characters and actors are departing, but the institution itself — the franchise as a whole — is being rebuilt with new additions, new settings, and new creative directions designed to carry it forward into a second quarter-century.

Why This All Matters: A Show That Refuses to Become a Relic

It would be easy to look at 23 seasons, multiple spinoffs, and the scale of transformation underway in 2026, and reach for a narrative of decline. The evidence does not support it. NCIS Season 23 renewed for a 24th season. NCIS: Origins renewed for a third despite losing half its episode order to the more heavily invested New York spinoff. NCIS: Sydney continuing into its third season. NCIS: New York launching with a 20-episode order and two proven, beloved stars. The flagship returning to its original timeslot as an anchor for a three-show Tuesday night block. These are not the moves of a franchise winding down — they are the moves of a network that still views NCIS as its cornerstone property, actively investing in the architecture of its next decade rather than simply milking the final years of a fading property.

The end of Leon Vance's 18-year run, the in-universe shutdown of the agency, the NIS-to-NCIS rebrand in Origins, the arrival of NCIS: New York — taken individually, any one of these would be the biggest NCIS story of the year. Taken together, they constitute something genuinely earned by one of the most durable franchises in television history: an era, defined by the people and stories that built it, coming to its close — and a new one, already in production, beginning.

Sources

1. CBR — "It's Officially The End of an Era for NCIS: Origins" (May 10, 2026) — cbr.com
2. CBR — "NCIS Season 23 Officially Ended an Era 20 Years After Ziva's Debut" (June 23, 2026) — cbr.com
3. CBR — "CBS Officially Seals the Fate of NCIS" (March 18, 2026) — cbr.com
4. Complex — "Rocky Carroll Exits 'NCIS' After 18 Seasons in Major Twist" (March 25, 2026) — complex.com
5. Wikipedia — "NCIS Season 23" — en.wikipedia.org
6. Deadline — "CBS Sets Season-Finale Dates For 'NCIS' Trio, 'Ghosts', 'Tracker', Other Series" (April 1, 2026) — deadline.com
7. Cheat Sheet / CBS — "CBS Reveals 2026 Finale Dates for 'NCIS,' 'Matlock,' 'Marshals,' Plus Canceled Shows 'Watson' and 'DMV'" (April 4, 2026) — cheatsheet.com