---
title: "NCIS"
year: 2003
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/ncis"
fi1m_id: "ncis"
imdb_id: "tt0364845"
tmdb_id: 4614
wikidata_id: "Q4525"
fi1m_score: 66
critics_reviews: 1
published: "2026-09-23T13:35:17.025391+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-23T13:35:38.694061+00:00"
region: "VN"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# NCIS (2003)

Created by Don McGill, Donald P. Bellisario · Crime, Drama, Action & Adventure

## Identity

NCIS

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/ncis
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** ncis
- **IMDb ID:** tt0364845
- **TMDB ID:** 4614
- **Wikidata ID:** Q4525
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364845/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/4614, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4525

**Fi1m score: 66** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Every case is solved before the adverts run out and somebody gets slapped on the back of the head for it

> Bellisario and McGill’s naval procedural has run for more than two decades on a formula that has not changed and a cast that has changed almost entirely. The plots are frequently absurd. The people are not, and that is why it lasts.

## Synopsis

Washington DC, 2003. NCIS investigates crimes involving sailors and Marines, and one of its teams works out of a squad room under Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), a former Marine who drinks coffee, says little and slaps the back of any head that talks nonsense. Beside him: Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), who never stops talking, and Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander), who is not impressed by any of it. In the basement, Dr. Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard (David McCallum) performs the autopsies; down the hall, Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) runs the forensics lab. Each hour brings a body on a base, a ship or a roadside, and a suspect who eventually sits opposite Gibbs.

## Review

Donald P. Bellisario and Don McGill’s *NCIS* first aired on 23 September 2003 and it has not stopped since. Twenty-four seasons and more than 500 episodes later the hour still has the same shape. A sailor or a Marine is found dead somewhere in or around Washington. Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his team are called, the body goes to autopsy, the evidence goes to the lab, and by the end the right person is sitting across a table from Gibbs and saying more than they meant to. It is a dependable, warmly played, frequently silly programme, and it is about as good as this kind of thing gets without becoming something else.

Harmon holds it together by doing less than anyone else on screen. Gibbs drinks his coffee, declines to answer questions, and when an agent says something foolish he slaps the back of their head without looking round. The performance is built of pauses and small refusals, and it works because everyone around him is written to fill the silence.

The filling is the point. Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo needles, flirts and quotes films at people who have not seen them; Sasha Alexander’s Caitlin Todd is not impressed by any of it. Sean Murray’s Timothy McGee is the one who understands the computers and is punished for it daily. Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto runs the forensics lab in black lipstick and pigtails and gets results at a speed that would astonish any real laboratory. Brian Dietzen’s Jimmy Palmer stands at the autopsy table trying to say something useful and mostly failing. The cases are the excuse for these people to be in a room together, and the writers, dozens of them over the years, know it.

And here is what got us. David McCallum’s Ducky is the only person in the building who is never in a hurry. He explains a wound as if giving a lecture nobody asked for, wanders off into a story about somewhere he once was, and gives the body in front of him a courtesy the living upstairs rarely get. We expected to find it a tic and instead found it moving, again and again, because McCallum plays it without a flicker of whimsy. Several of our favourite hours are the ones where the case is dull and Ducky has been given something to say.

The craft is television craft and honest about it. Bill Webb and Gregory Paul Collier light everything evenly and brightly, so a corpse in a car park looks much like a conversation in the office. Robert J. Bacon and Robert Steuer’s squad room, open desks facing one another, is where most of the acting happens, and it is built so that four people can talk across it without anyone moving. The music, credited variously to Steven Bramson, Joseph Conlan and Brian Kirk, tells you when to be tense and gets out of the way. Lance Anderson and the other editors cut the interrogations slow and the chases fast, which is correct.

What does not work is anything the show takes seriously. The terrorists, the moles, the season-long conspiracies about who is really running what: these are the stretches where we were bored, and then annoyed at being bored by a programme that had just made us laugh. The forensics are nonsense. A partial print is matched, a hard drive is cracked and a satellite is repositioned in the time it takes Gibbs to fetch a coffee. Later arrivals, Cote De Pablo’s Ziva David, Emily Wickersham’s Ellie Bishop, Wilmer Valderrama’s Nick Torres and Katrina Law’s Jessica Knight among them, are slotted into the shapes left by whoever went before, and the show marks each departure with a tearful hour and then carries on as if nothing had happened. We will not say who leaves or how.

The lesson of this kind of television is that the audience comes back for the people, and *NCIS* is the plainest statement of that lesson on air. It carries a 15 in the UK, the bodies are handled without much squeamishness, and more than 500 hours is a warning about supply rather than a promise about quality. Start at the beginning, watch it in the evening with someone who will not mind you talking over the plot, and stop the day Gibbs’s silences stop working on you.

*Fi1m score 66, published 23 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is NCIS worth watching?**

*NCIS* is worth watching for anyone who wants a dependable, warmly played crime procedural and does not mind the plots being silly, and we scored it 66. The cases are an excuse to put Mark Harmon, David McCallum and the rest in a room together, and that is where it earns its keep. Skip the season-long conspiracies; they are the dull stretches.

**Where can I watch NCIS in Vietnam?**

*NCIS* is not on any streaming or rental service in Vietnam at the moment. It is available in 43 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is NCIS, and is it suitable for children?**

*NCIS* carries a 15 in the UK and a TV-14 in the US, and it is not for young children. Each hour opens with a dead sailor or Marine, and the autopsy scenes handle the bodies without much squeamishness, though the tone stays brisk and often comic rather than frightening. Older teenagers used to crime drama will find nothing here to trouble them.

**How does NCIS compare to Spiral?**

*NCIS* is the lighter and more comfortable of the two, and [*Spiral*](https://film.one/tv/spiral) is the better programme. The French series lets its cases go wrong and its team fray, and Caroline Proust's Laure Berthaud is a far richer detective than Gibbs, who is built from silences. Choose *NCIS* for an undemanding evening, *Spiral* when you want to be caught up.

**What should I watch after NCIS?**

After *NCIS*, try [*Engrenages*](https://film.one/tv/spiral) (2005, Fi1m 86): A Paris crime procedural that lets the cases go badly and the team fray. Then [*Homicide: Life on the Street*](https://film.one/tv/homicide-life-on-the-street) (1993, Fi1m 89): Baltimore detectives in a shabbier squad room, with the jokes doing heavier lifting.

### Reviews we read (1)

- **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The critic urges viewers to give the show a chance despite unrealistic plots and stereotypes, arguing it is a character-driven series worth watching for its family-like dynamics and humor. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/dec/14/wholovesncishttpwwwcbscompr)

## Details

- **Created by:** Don McGill, Donald P. Bellisario
- **Creator:** Don McGill, Donald P. Bellisario
- **Director:** Dennis Smith, Terrence O'Hara, James Whitmore Jr., Tony Wharmby, Thomas J. Wright, Michael Zinberg, Arvin Brown, Rocky Carroll, Diana Valentine, Leslie Libman, Tawnia McKiernan, Mark Horowitz, Lionel Coleman, Colin Bucksey, Bethany Rooney, Bill Webb, José Clemente Hernandez, Alan J. Levi, Alrick Riley, Jeff Woolnough, Martha Mitchell, Peter Ellis, Claudia Yarmy, Michael Weatherly, Edward Ornelas, Stephen Cragg, Marc Roskin, Tom Wright, Ian Toynton, Daniela Ruah, Michelle MacLaren, Mario Van Peebles, Craig Ross Jr., Dan Lerner, Holly Dale, Oz Scott, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Donald P. Bellisario, Aaron Lipstadt, Bradford May
- **Writer:** Steven D. Binder, Christopher J. Waild, Scott Williams, George Schenck, Frank Cardea, David North, Gary Glasberg, Jesse Stern, Gina Lucita Monreal, Brendan Fehily, Marco Schnabel, John C. Kelley, Donald P. Bellisario, Jennifer Corbett, Shane Brennan, Reed Steiner, Christopher Silber, Nicole Mirante-Matthews, Jack Bernstein, Katherine Beattie, Yasemin Yilmaz, Chad Gomez Creasey, Sydney Mitchel, Kimberly-Rose Wolter, Gil Grant, Dan E. Fesman, Alfonso H. Moreno, Amy Rutberg, Scott J. Jarrett, Frank Military, Margaret Rose Lester, Brian Dietzen, Andrew Bartels, Matthew R. Jarrett, Don McGill, Dana Coen, Nell Scovell, Steven Kriozere, Lee David Zlotoff, Roger Director, Matthew Lau, Cindi Hemingway, Richard C. Arthur, Christopher Crowe, Katie White, Laurence Walsh, Kate Torgovnick May, Robert Palm, Linda Burstyn, Craig Van Sickle, Steven Long Mitchell, Juan Carlos Coto, Bill Nuss, Allison Abner, Philip DeGuere, Gina Gold, Steven Kane, Darcy Meyers, Lisa Di Trolio, Thomas L. Moran, Bob Gookin, Diona Reasonover, Gina Monreal, Aurorae Khoo, Jill Weinberger
- **Story:** Gary Glasberg, Christopher J. Waild, Gina Lucita Monreal, Jesse Stern, Marco Schnabel, Donald P. Bellisario, Jennifer Corbett, Dan E. Fesman, Craig Van Sickle, Jeff Vlaming, Steven Long Mitchell, Leon Carroll Jr.
- **Teleplay:** Christopher J. Waild, Scott Williams, Gina Lucita Monreal, Donald P. Bellisario, Reed Steiner, Jeff Vlaming, Steven D. Binder, David North, Gary Glasberg, Brendan Fehily, Jennifer Corbett, Gil Grant, Alfonso H. Moreno, Don McGill, Craig Van Sickle, Steven Long Mitchell, Larry Moskowitz
- **Cinematography:** Bill Webb, Gregory Paul Collier
- **Editor:** Gregory Gontz, Jonathan N.C. Poirier, Stephen Michael, Jordan Goldman, Lance Anderson, Mitchel Stanley
- **Music:** Brian Kirk, Steven Bramson, Joseph Conlan, Brian Kirk
- **Production design:** Robert Steuer, Robert J. Bacon
- **Producer:** Shane Brennan, Mark R. Schilz, Avery C. Drewe
- **Cast:** Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs; Sean Murray as Timothy McGee; Michael Weatherly as Tony DiNozzo; Wilmer Valderrama as Nick Torres; Katrina Law as Jessica Knight; Cote De Pablo as Ziva David; Brian Dietzen as Jimmy Palmer; Sasha Alexander as Caitlin Todd
- **Release (Vietnam):** 23 September 2003
- **Genres:** Crime, Drama, Action & Adventure

## Where to watch in Vietnam

Not streaming, renting or buying in Vietnam at the last check.

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IN, IT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- International TV Audience Award for Best Drama TV Series 2015: International TV Audience Award for Best Drama TV Series (won)
- NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series 2013: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (nominated)
- Primetime Emmy Awards 2008: Outstanding Stunt Coordination (nominated)
- Primetime Emmy Awards 2005: Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Columbo* (1971): The original lesson that you return for the detective, not the murder.
- *Silent Witness* (1996): British pathologists, colder rooms, and the dead treated with the same odd courtesy.
- *Bones* (2005): Same decade, same lab magic, a sharper edge to the office flirtation.
- *Engrenages* (2005), Fi1m 86: A Paris crime procedural that lets the cases go badly and the team fray. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/spiral.md)
- *Homicide: Life on the Street* (1993), Fi1m 89: Baltimore detectives in a shabbier squad room, with the jokes doing heavier lifting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/homicide-life-on-the-street.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/ncis