The NCIS franchise entered waters both familiar and uncharted earlier this year with NCIS: Tony & Ziva. While the spinoff reunited its title characters for the first time since NCIS Season 11’s second episode, unlike the franchise’s other shows, it streamed exclusively with a Paramount+ subscription rather than aired on CBS, which in turn allowed the show to be more adult than its network TV counterparts. However, it’s now official: Tony & Ziva will not return for a second season, which disappoints me for one specific reason.
Paramount+ and CBS Studios announced today that they’ve cancelled NCIS: Tony & Ziva after just one season. Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, who executive produced the series in addition to reprising Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David, respectively, said the following in a joint statement:
We feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to play these characters once again and to tell the next chapter of Tony and Ziva’s story. Our deepest thanks go to our extraordinary cast, crew, writers, directors, and producers, and to our partners at CBS Studios and Paramount+ who helped make this dream a reality. But most of all, we want to thank the fans around the world who joined us on this adventure and finally got to see Tony and Ziva find their happily ever after.
In Variety’s writeup of the cancellation, it’s mentioned that according to Luminate data, NCIS: Tony & Ziva got off to a strong start when it premiered on Paramount+ in September, but there was a “rapid 51% drop-off” across the first three episodes, which were released on the same day. Tony & Ziva was received warmly by both critics and audiences, with CinemaBlend’s Laura Hurley writing that she enjoyed watching those opening episodes despite not being a fan of the original NCIS. Nevertheless, in the end, falling numbers trumped positive critical reception, resulting in the show being cancelled.
If it’s any consolation to the NCIS: Tony & Ziva fans, it’s that the show ended basically without any lingering plot threads. Boris got a fresh start at Tony’s company after discovering his wife was a con artist who stole his money, Martine was welcomed back to Interpol and seemingly arranged for Jonah Markham’s “suicide,” and, most importantly, Tony and Ziva got the “happy something” that Cote de Pablo desired when she agreed to work on the show. And yet, that last part is what makes me sad we aren’t getting Tony & Ziva Season 2.
Now that Tony and Ziva are back together, and with their daughter Tali’s blessing, I was hoping we would see more adventures of this family unit. I understand why the show started out with Weatherly and de Pablo’s characters separated, as it made for a compelling flashback storyline to show why their marriage plans fell through, but now the ‘will they, won’t they’ that defined Tony and Ziva’s relationship for so long is finally over. So if they get pulled into another series of unfortunate events, how do they grapple with that as romantic partners for the entirety of that story, with or without Tali in tow?
Alas, we’ll never know. So now the best we can hope for is that there will come a day when NCIS brings back Tony and Ziva so we can learn what’s happened to them since their spinoff show ended and see them reunite with characters like Timothy McGee and Jimmy Palmer. If that’s ever announced, count on CinemaBlend to let you know about it.
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