CBS Execs Discuss Future of 'NCIS' Franchise, Spinoffs, Castings, Renewals, Crossovers, Cameos, 'Tiva' & More: The Biggest Highlights!

On the fate of NCIS and NCIS Hawai’i, which have not yet been renewed:

REISENBACH: Like we talked about it a couple months ago, NCIS is a cornerstone of our schedule. The actors love doing it, and the writers continue to fire on all cylinders. As far as the future, we’re thrilled to have them on the air and they want to keep doing it, so we’re going to keep doing it…it’s still only March, and we haven’t made all of our deals and decision-making so it’s a little early to officially confirm anything.

On NCIS: Sydney, which was just renewed for Season 2, and where it will air:

REISENBACH: I can’t tell you where it’s going to air yet because we haven’t figured that out to be honest. Again, that’s sort of the too soon to tell category. But the show resonated, it was the number one show until we brought back the rest of the schedule. It came on and did really well without much of our launch platform. We had a great launch campaign for it, if you remember, we did these amazing upside-down promos during football that got a lot of attention. So I think just the fact that it launched with very little original programming surrounding it and did so well, it has earned a spot back on the schedule at some point for sure.

On the NCIS prequel series Origins:

STAPF: In the case of Origins, Mark [Harmon] and Sean Harmon had this idea with [writers] David North and Gina Monreal, and they brought it to us. I was like, oh my gosh, this idea is great. Commissioned a script, the script was even better. So it’s like, okay, can this show exist within the framework of the franchise we have? And we do believe it can, particularly because it’s a prequel. And because NCIS has been on for so long and Mark’s been gone for a while, there’s genuine interest in, how did Gibbs become Gibbs, who was that guy? So again, there was an organic reason to do it vs. us just saying, let’s just throw on another NCIS.