There’s the Indy 500, and then there’s the NC-500. “NCIS” will air its 500th episode Tuesday night — a rarefied air shared in scripted prime-time television only by “Gunsmoke,” “Lassie,” a couple of “Law and Order” series and a couple of animated shows, not all of which were actually on the air for as many seasons as the 23 “NCIS” has racked up. The show plans to offer up a surprising development with the unveiling of episode 500, but perhaps nothing is as shocking — albeit a surprise that has been spread out — as this procedural continuing to be a top 10 series, now, in what ought to be its dotage, if there was any likelihood that it could endure this long at all.
Speaking of survivors, executive producer Steven D. Binder has been on “NCIS” since season 3; he got boosted to co-showrunner in 2018 and sole showrunner in 2021. He jokes that he set out to get the top job to ensure that he was in charge of character deaths on the series, after, as a member of the writing staff, he argued against killing off the tertiary character Mike Franks in 2011 but was outvoted by the others. But in all seriousness, he has seen — and, in the last eight years, overseen — a lot of turnover in the cast, including the top dog, Mark Harmon, finally making his exit in 2021, to be replaced in the ensemble’s leader role by Gary Cole. Even with a churn that sees only one original cast member left (Sean McGee) and only two others who date back to the 2000s (Brian Dietzen and Rocky Carroll), audience loyalty has been remarkable, even if it’s no longer the No. 1 scripted show each week, ensuring “NCIS” will live on forever in syndication and streaming, even if an end date has to come someday for new episodes.
Or does it? Binder thinks the show may yet outlive him, and maybe anyone else currently involved. ” I know this sounds like hubris,” he says, “but if the sun comes up every day for 20 years, you just feel like there’s a good chance it’s gonna come up tomorrow! And that’s sort of how I feel about the show. It’s not even an adjudication of quality or judgment or how awesome our numbers are or how much people love it. It’s just, literally, there has always been ‘NCIS,’ it feels like there’s always going to be ‘NCIS,’ and I don’t see any reason why that’s gonna change. Other than the utter and complete total collapse of the network broadcast business model. Other than that.”
On a recent morning in a week when the cast and crew were shooting the season 23 finale, Binder caught up with Variety to discuss his two-decade tenure and how some key changes have been navigated… along with how some things on “NCIS” never change, by design. (By the way, we will check in again with Binder after episode 500 has aired, to discuss any major developments.)
This is a no-spoiler zone for episode 500. Anything you would want to promise fans about it without revealing specific details?
I will promise them what they’ve come to expect from the best of these shows, which is some great twists and surprises, some fantastic heart, and I would promise them that this show will remind them how much they care about “NCIS.” And how much they care about the people in “NCIS.”
Now that you’ve passed 500 episodes, are you counting how may you have to do in the next few seasons to get past like “Lassie” and “Gunsmoke” and things like that?
I’m actually looking them up now. “Lassie” had 591 episodes, but in 19 seasons. “Gunsmoke” had 20 seasons and 635 episodes. You know, we go by seasons now [in thinking about records]. And every one ahead of us is still on the air [“The Simpsons” with 37 seasons, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” with 27, “Law and Order” with 25 and “Family Guy” with 23], so I don’t know that we’ll be catching any of them anytime soon.
There have been so many milestones “NCIS” has already blown past, but 500 is a great round number, there’s no doubt about it.
Yes, it’s a rounder number than 250, which felt like a benchmark too. And it’s coming at a time of great change and upheaval, so this one feels different because of that, also. At 200, you could think about 300, and at 300, you can think about 400. At 500, you’re not thinking so much about 600. Your brain just goes to 750 or 1000. And I don’t know that I’ll be alive for 1000. I don’t know that people won’t just be plugging into their holographic atmospheres for entertainment by the time we get to a thousand. So it feels very uncharted, in a way that the other landmarks didn’t.
The wheel has not been constantly reinvented in terms of the format of the show, so obviously cast changes count as the biggest. There were so many years when the question was, could the show survive with its lead actor going away? And we’ve long since had an answer to that, in the positive, post-Mark Harmon. And so it is proof of concept that the concept is what people are most in love with, although the fans certainly love their cast favorites. It seems as long as there’s some continuity there, and as long as the transitions are handled in a particular way…
But, you know, even before it was the lead. I remember when Pauley (Perrette) left [in 2018]: Can the show survive? With the loss of Abby, people were pretty freaked out. Before that, Cote (de Pablo leaving in 2013) and then Michael (Weatherly in 2016) — it just kept continuing. So by the time Mark left, there had already been a little bit of a proof of concept that the show might be able to survive the loss of any one cast member.
Gary Cole, Diona Reasonover, Steven D. Binder, Wilmer Valderrama, Katrina Law, Sean Murray, Brian Dietzen, and Rocky Carroll of NCIS attend the CBSFEST 2025-2026: Schedule Announcement event to celebrate CBS’ 2025-2026 primetime lineup at the Paramount Studios lot in Los Angeles on May 7, 2025.
CBS
If it hasn’t turned out to be a singular cult of personality, what does keep people hanging on? Do you have like a nutshell for what it is that has proven addictive?
You have the quarterback, of course, and that was Gibbs. But we always have been an ensemble show, and I think part of the fun for audiences is seeing the team interact with each other. That’s not breaking any brains, making that statement. So as long as there’s an interaction, and a family-like interaction, I think the fans are enjoying watching it. So you can lose somebody as long as they’re replaced in the right way with the right person and that family/team ensemble dynamic continues. Now, obviously different people have their favorite characters, and those people are bummed when their favorite character leaves. But I think if you were to poll our audiences, the favoritism is relatively equal. Everybody on that show has a nice, solid fan base. I’m just doing quick math, but let’s say five (lead characters), so every one gets 20%. When one person leaves, you’re really bummed out 20% of the audience. But maybe you keep 16 of them pretty happy with their replacement. They’re like, “OK, I miss my guy, but I like this new person too.” So there’s been an attrition, for sure. But I also would counter my own argument by saying there’s been an attrition overall completely in the broadcast model, and that we’ve actually suffered less of it, or are doing better than the average decline in ratings, even with these losses of beloved characters. The nutshell is, this is an ensemble show, with characters interacting in a certain way in a certain place, and as long as that continues, I think we’ll have an audience.
Steven D. Binder
CBS
You mention the increasing difficulty over the years of coming up with plots that will fulfill what has to be done as part of the show. And I’m thinking, if you add up 500 episodes, with a death at the beginning of all but a handful of them, how many dead sailors is that? That’s quite a homicide rate for the Navy.
Yes. With McGee and [the episode] “Probie,” in season 3, I remember we were asking the actual NCIS, “What’s the protocol for when an agent shoots somebody?” Because we had this character who shot somebody for the first time. And their response was, “We’ll get back to you. We’ve never had anyone shoot anybody.”
That’s really quite a mortality rate, but also a 100% success-in-solving-crime rate, so that speaks well…
Yeah, the real NCIS is a big fan of that. We make them look very good.
Is there any transition you’ve navigated that you feel most proud of, whether it was one of those cast changes or anything else that’s happened in the show’s evolution?
I think it was Gibbs [leaving]. Because that was a planned transition [from Harmon to Gary Cole] that happened over seven, eight episodes. And specifically, we modeled it after the “Fugitive” model. Over the course of the movie Tommy Lee Jones, who’s pursuing Harrison Ford and is the bad guy who you don’t like, ends up starting to see that Harrison Ford just might be a righteous man. And by the end of the movie, Ford has won Jones over, and then by the end of the movie, you absolutely love Tommy Lee Jones. And that was the plan with Gary Cole: He was going to enter this show as a nemesis who we did not like, and we did not present him as someone who was going to take over the spot that Gibbs had right away, because we thought people would instantly have a knee-jerk negative reaction towards him. And then the audience goes on a journey with Parker, and he starts to realize that Gibbs is actually a righteous man. Not only does Parker step up to defend and protect Gibbs, he loses his job because of it. He throws his his own life on the line. So now you love this guy. But even when he shows up in the bullpen, he shows up and he says, “I’m not taking the job.” And so it gives the audience a chance to spend an episode with him without judging him and without deciding whether or not they like him. They’re just there for the ride, and then at the very end when he truly appreciates that this place is so great, the audience is going, “You have to take the job. How could you turn this job down?” That was a sort of magical sleight of hand, I think, that helped the audience let go of Gibbs and then also accept this new guy. And I’m most proud of that, because it worked, basically, and it was a tough lift.
“Sandblast” — Gibbs (Mark Harmon, center) and the team (Michael Weatherly, left, and Cote de Pablo, right) investigate a suspected terrorist attack at a military country club that kills a Marine Colonel, on a March 27, 2007 episode of “NCIS.”
CLIFF LIPSON
You must’ve spent a lot of time being faced with the practicality of, OK, how, how do we get over this Mark Harmon hump everyone has had years to dread?
Yeah, it was a lot of of time. And then it became clear what it should be. And I remember even episode 2 and 3 with Owen Parker, the network loved the pitches and they were fully on board, but when they were seeing the dailies of Parker in the beginning, they were like, “We don’t like this guy!” And I’m like, “Stay the course. That’s the plan. You’re not supposed to like him. It’s a good thing. We’re gonna turn that, and then you’re gonna love him.” And that’s what happened.
“Fleeting” – Pictured (L-R): Sean Murray as Timothy McGee and Gary Cole as Alden Parker in a 2025 episode of “NCIS.”
CBS
There was a little bit of precedent there, although with the stakes not nearly as high, with Rocky Carroll’s character, where he was ambiguous for quite a while, in terms of whether the audience could trust him, let alone take a shine to him.
Yeah, and people did not like him. For a long while, I’d meet people and they were like, “I don’t like that director guy,” because he was kind of a dick. But he also was not in the show that much at the beginning. Every show’s got their characters that are sort of the odd man out or the antagonistic energies, and that’s who Rocky played. But he’s such a great guy, it was hard to keep him in that box for very long.
So it not necessarily the plan that Director Vance would become, for lack of a better term, as cuddly as as he eventually did?
You know, a lot of these characters, we see what we have, and they evolve in the way that it plays to their strengths. And he’s the boss and he’s in charge, but there’s always been a warmth to Rocky himself, and that started to shine through to the character. I’ll tell you the original plan was, we did the first couple seasons of the show, and we had a director, Tom Morrow, who was not in the show that much. And then we had Lauren Holly in for a little while, but not every episode, I don’t think. And it was difficult to find things for the director to do. The show really wasn’t built that way. Then she eventually left and we were going to replace that character with a new director, but Rocky was not supposed to be in that many episodes. He was so good that every year he was in another episode [more than the last]. I don’t remember the [initial] number, but let’s say 10, and then it’s 11, 12 and 13, and then 10 years later, he’s in almost all the episodes. But the original plan was to not use him all that much at all, and he just was such a fantastic addition and such a great actor. And so when you had him in a scene and you knew he was gonna show up, have a take, know it, do it cold, do it awesome, and be a joy to work with, yeah, you tend to get written in more, when you’re like that. Which is not to say that everyone else isn’t great too. But he’s top of the heap.
“All Good Things” – When the son of a Marine that Gibbs once helped comes to NCIS in desperation, the fractured team reunites off the books. But chasing justice without a badge may cost them more than their careers, on the 500th episode of the CBS Original series NCIS, Tuesday, March 24 .Pictured: Rocky Carroll as Leon Vance.
CBS
I’ve sometimes asked Rocky Carroll how many years it took for him to stop feeling like the new guy. It’s like how, when we’re talking bands or something, they’ll be the guy who came in 20 years ago and are still the new guy. And so with “NCIS,” some of these people we think of as still being new characters have been around longer than most shows ever exist in their entire runs.
Right, right, right. I don’t know if you saw… it’s a really funny line where someone, I forget who, says it to Wilmer (Valderrama), “Oh, you’re the new Tony” or “Are you the new Tony?” And he is like, “I’ve been here 10 years. What are you talking about?” It’s really funny, because it embodies what you said. I came in in season 3. I stopped feeling like the new guy five years ago, I think — even though within six months, I was like the third longest running writer on the show, because we lost a lot of writers in the beginning.
Do you ever think about how, in syndication or streaming, if people are just watching random episodes, it may be a little hard for someone to get their bearings who’s in the cast if they sit down and see something from season 16 back to back with something from season 3, if they aren’t doing it in order.
But also less so than, say, if you were jumping into “Lost” out of order. But because people know I work on the show, I find a lot of people who over the years say they’re gonna start watching it, and they start at “Yankee One.” They start at the beginning, and they get through them very quickly. It’s almost bizarre how quickly. I’m like, “Don’t you have three kids?” It seems like it’s a show that if it’s your thing, it hooks you in and hooks you in pretty hard from the jump. Which I guess is why we’re doing episode 500.
With so many fewers shows being based in L.A. any more, has it become more challenging to stay put?
I’m trying to think if there’s been a lot of existing shows that have moved their production to another city. Certainly a new show can start in another city. But to move, by the time you do the math on the cost of the move and the savings, I don’t know that it actually adds up to that much. You’re still paying the actors what you’re gonna pay them. We’re only talking about below the line and location savings. We shoot in Santa Clarita. and then you’re taking a huge risk because you’re not going to be moving your crew and you’re gonna have to get a relatively local crew in wherever new city you get. So you’re doing something that’s extremely disruptive that may take a few years to recoup its losses, and you risk blowing the whole thing up. So I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone talk to me about moving to another place to shoot. Even as the financials get tighter and tighter, it just becomes budget cuts, really. We find a way to do it here.
For the crew, the chance to keep working near home in L.A. must feel more precious every year.
I think so. There’s a lot of people who have been on the show for so long, their thinking is, “This is the ride.” We have a lot of people retiring off of “NCIS.” Another couple years and I might be one of them. People are extremely grateful to have this job, not only because of the stability, but because it really is a fantastic place to work. And if you talk to any guest stars, it has just been consistent. I just had a guest star say to me, “You guys are suspiciously wonderful.” I think that’s where the gratitude comes from — and the catering. We have a fantastic caterer. I say that to the caterers all the time, and it feels like a punchline or a laugh line, but it also has the benefit of being the truth. If you know you have a nice place to work, nice weather and really good food, what else can anyone ask for?
“Stolen Moments” – When a man is shot by the Secret Service outside the vice president’s official residence, NCIS is aided in the case by a new member of the team: an AI chatbot being beta-tested by the Department of Justice, on NCIS, Tuesday, Dec. 9 Pictured (L-R): Sean Murray as Timothy McGee, Wilmer Valderrama as Nick Torres, Katrina Law as Jessica Knight, Rocky Carroll as Leon Vance, and Brian Dietzen as Jimmy Palmer .
CBS
What’s really kept you on this long? If had the urge to move on, I’m sure you would’ve had your choice of a lot of things, or been creating things for yourself, but you are a true mainstay.
I had many opportunities where I could have left, and was asked and had meetings with people to go to this other show, which creatively is desirable because it gets harder and harder… It doesn’t get easier, with whatever formula we have, as the years goes by, to make these shows interesting. That was the carrot, the draw [to change jobs]. But I would sit down and be like, OK, what’s my life gonna be like? Who am I going to be working with? What’s the day-to-day gonna look like? And you break it up into a bunch of categories. So in this category where I’m working now, it’s a 9 or a 10, and in another category, an 8 or 9, so the best that I could get going to this other place would be to match or meet that… If I went through the checklist, all that’s going to happen — aside from the creative novelty — is I’m either gonna be in the same position or worse, because I’m not going to be some place better. I recognized that. And especially having a family, too.. This is a tough business. It’s a very difficult job, and I didn’t want to go someplace where it was gonna be more work for less enjoyment.
In terms of going out and creating my own things, I have been attached to various projects. But I will say that I spend so much time on this show that if I have any extra bandwidth, I’m gonna do cardio. That’s just the sad truth: I’m gonna go exercise, not spend six, seven hours a week of my spare time developing something. Maybe that’s shortsighted, but my cardiologist thinks it’s a great way to run things. So that’s really what it comes down to: I haven’t had a ton of time to develop. I have a little bit, and I sold some pilots, but you know, you are either doing it or you’re not. And to do that is a full-time job, and then some — it’s a couple full-time jobs. So that’s the lack of creating my own.
And being asked to go work on other things… I don’t want to name any particular shows that I was asked to (join), but… you know, that show’s been gone for 10 years now! I’d be taking the gamble that I’m gonna go someplace and then probably going to be entering the lottery every couple years, and doing it over and over again. Or I could be here, where even though every time I sit down to write one of these scripts, I think, “Oh my God, I don’t know what I’m doing. I suck. I’m a fraud. I’ve got a big nose. My hair’s falling out. This is not for me. I hate writing,” it always seems to work out. And that’s a nice feeling, sitting down and having all those feelings, and then just being all like, “Well, maybe I’m just gonna start typing and then I’ll worry about it later.”
On Tuesday, September 4, 2007, the cast of NCIS gathered to celebrate the start of production on the hit series’ 100th episode. From left: David McCallum, Lauren Holly, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, Cote de Pablo, Brian Dietzen, Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly.
CLIFF LIPSON
You mentioned you can foresee retiring someday. Could you even offer a guess for how long you think the show has in it, and then for yourself, how long you could go?
Well, yeah, I’ve hit the point where my biggest thing that I’d rather be doing is being with my family. But my oldest is going to college next year, and my youngest next year is going to be a freshman in high school, so they may not be interested. I certainly wouldn’t mind a little more free time to spend with them while they’re still around, if they want to spend it with me. But if I could stay on the show past that point, then I’ll just go until I die, I guess.
As for how long I think the show goes, I think advertising dollars are dropping and it makes it more difficult to justify this model. But I think as long as the model is intact, and as long as we don’t have a mass exodus of actors in one year, I think the show keeps going. I don’t think it ever stops. I really don’t. You know, we had one year where we had a big drop; we dropped 15% in the ratings, and I’m like, “Oh, OK. That’s a big trial.” And then I looked at everybody else, and everyone else was 30%. And that sort of has been the consistent story of “NCIS.” When we were No. 1, a lot of times a show would come along and it would beat us for six months, and then it would drop down below us, and then it would be gone in three, four years. But we are still very respectable. These new shows come along and they don’t just beat us, but they clean our clock, and then by season 2 or 3, we’re ahead of them again. It’s been like that for so long that… I know this sounds like hubris, but if the sun comes up every day for 20 years, you just feel like there’s a good chance it’s gonna come up tomorrow! And that’s sort of how I feel about the show…
It does seem like, as long as the changes are gradual, in one sense, there’s no reason why it couldn’t go on forever. But you mentioned what would happen if a large cast exodus happened all at once —you might have to write like a massacre episode or something to explain it. But that’s probably not likely to happen.
No. But it’s also an opportunity. Or maybe not, because I don’t know that you get new eyeballs to the show, and you would just lose a lot of eyeballs. But four new people would be a radically different experiment. And if it’s the right people, who knows what could happen. That’s not a gamble I’d want to make. I felt comfortable over the years losing one by one; although it upsets people and it’s a break in family tradition, these new characters also provide new story and new content. We are a character-forward show, and you talked about generating new cases, and that’s tough. But bringing in new people gives us new dynamics to play with, and that’s a huge plus for us as writers. So, four new people would be a lot of pluses. I just don’t know that it’d be worth the minuses, but it would be interesting.
The success of some of the “NCIS” spinoffs is testament to that, since there is a huge degree of familiarity with the basic bullpen-and-investigation situation, even though it’s all-new characters doing it.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s the same but different. And you know what, there’s only so much family dynamic before you start repeating yourself, but maybe that’s OK. Because my dad used to call me every day, and he’d just say the same shit over and over again, and I loved hearing his voice, so it didn’t bother me. Then the calls stop and you’re like, “I wish I was hearing that same thing over and over again.”
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