Anyone who watched NCIS during its first 13 seasons is quite familiar with Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David. The popular characters were co-workers and ‘will they, won’t they’ romantic interests for eight seasons on the popular CBS program, and come this September on the 2025 TV schedule, we’ll finally see them paired back together in the aptly-named NCIS: Tony & Ziva. Needless to say that the Tiva fans out there won’t need persuading to watch this Paramount+ spinoff, but showrunner John McNamara has also revealed how the show is going to welcome in newcomers to the NCIS world.
CinemaBlend was in attendance for the NCIS: Tony & Ziva panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where McNamara was seated alongside series leads and fellow executive producers Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo. The panel, moderated by Jimmy Palmer actor Brian Dietzen, began with a montage detailing Tony and Ziva’s complicated relationship from the NCIS days. Later on in the panel, when Dietzen asked if this was a show that people who haven’t seen NCIS could easily “jump into,” McNamara answered:
I do, but also the clip you saw at the very top is actually gonna play at the very beginning of this episode. So what you'll see as the viewer is… the history of Tony and Ziva, and then we cut away to Budapest.
It’s good to hear that NCIS: Tony & Ziva will kick off with this montage, as I’d been wondering how this show was going to cater to a crowd unfamiliar with the title characters. It’s one thing for an NCIS franchise newbie to get into a spinoff like NCIS: Sydney or even a prequel like NCIS: Origins, but Tony and Ziva spent nearly a decade with each other on TV. You can’t expect everyone who turns on this new show to just jump into the deep end of the proverbial pool and be able to fully understand the kind of dynamic they have.
At the same time, John McNamara also hopes this montage brings back good memories for the established NCIS fans and maybe even convinces them to revisit Tony and Ziva’s younger years together. As he put it:
I do feel that we've tried to walk a balance between what… institutional viewers who know it cold, I don't think they'll be bored. Hopefully they'll be almost nostalgic to see those older episodes, and then the new viewers are like, ‘Oh wow, they're like a thing! OK, I get it.’
So far, Tony DiNozzo, Ziva David and their daughter Tali, now played by Isla Gie, are the only NCIS characters who will appear on NCIS: Tony & Ziva. As far as new faces go, the cast also includes Amita Suman, Lara Rossi, Maximillian Oskinski, Julian Ovenden and James D’Arcy. Mairzee Almas, Laurie Lieser, Shelley Meals and Christina Straine are also attached as executive producers.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva will premiere its first three episodes on Paramount+ September 4, followed by a weekly rollout until the season finale drops on October 23. So far the show is only set for the one season, but if it’s received well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony & Ziva Season 2 is at least discussed, if not outright ordered.
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