In an era when few streaming shows last beyond a single season, over on network TV, sturdy if faintly overheated procedurals like “NCIS” are still going strong. The first 18-plus of its 22 seasons were led by Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the impassive Special Agent in Charge and boss extraordinaire who liked to build boats in his basement in his spare time. “How did he ever get that way?” said nobody ever. But CBS is taking a page from “Young Sheldon” with its latest spinoff “NCIS: Origins.” Or as audiences will be tempted to call it, “Young Gibbs.”
Harmon (who is an executive producer here) makes a brief return on screen to set the stage for a TV series that functions as one long flashback to 1991 when Gibbs joined the Naval Investigation Service (NIS as it was known back then) fresh out of the Marines and shortly after the murder of his wife and child. Austin Stowell is appropriately stoic as Gibbs, but he’s stuck playing a character who doesn’t have many layers beyond his trauma, and the show more or less hopes his tragic loss will do most of the characterization work instead. Spoiler: It doesn’t. He failed his psych eval! He’s wound tight and suppressing grief! Well, that will have to suffice.
TV and film love nothing more than a strong silent type who has lost a wife or child, or both. That way, he can be endlessly sympathetic without having to actually be an emotionally present spouse or parent — or hear about it when he’s not. At least for a few years over on “Law & Order: SVU,” they gave Elliot Stabler a family he could constantly disappoint. But I digress.
Does a weekly procedural need lore? No! But lore you will be served. The show is solidly made and if you’re a dedicated viewer of “NCIS,” maybe there’s something satisfying in the premise. It does try to emulate the original’s sensibility, tempering a super-seriousness with a modicum of comic relief and quirky side characters. And wow, there are a lot of side characters here — as if show creators Gina Monreal and David J. North were throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks — but at least they’re interesting enough, what we see of them, anyway. I especially like what Michael J. Harney does with a brief appearance in Episode 3 as the kind of unflappable, seen-it-all guy who’s been around forever running things in evidence storage. He underplays it just so (and will be a recurring character).
The group of primary investigators is small, if not particularly interesting. Mariel Molino plays the sole woman on the team and she’s a rebel because she wears her NIS-issued baseball cap backward, or something. She and Gibbs have a tense dynamic, but chances are that will thaw into something more. Or not. Just seems like things are headed that way.
There’s Caleb Foote as the nerdy, overeager colleague who befriends Gibbs instantly, Tyla Abercrumbie as the maternal desk jockey who handles unspecified administrative tasks and Patrick Fischler as the besuited boss they all answer to. Australian actor Robert Taylor (“Longmire”) also shows up as Gibbs’ father (who was played by Ralph Waite in the original “NCIS”).
But the real breakout is Kyle Schmid as the cowboy who runs this ragtag team of NIS investigators. He’s got a Marlboro Man mustache and a big swinging … ego. This character trope shouldn’t work, but it really does. There’s not much in Schmid’s resume up to this point that stands out, but he is making a meal out of the role and his performance might be the best thing “NCIS: Origins” has going for it. “I’m thinking somebody wanted her dead,” he opines at one point about a case. That’s your theory, his boss asks annoyed? “It’s what we got, ’til we got more.” It’s a great line reading and it doesn’t hurt that Schmid has one of the better voices (twang included) on TV at the moment, marbled one supposes by cigarettes and whiskey and nights by the campfire telling stories about bar fights and his old mare Bessie.
The cases are barely compelling and I’m always reminded how difficult it is to do this kind of economical storytelling well. What about the 1991 of it all? At first glance, the show doesn’t look like a period piece and I’m guessing that’s due to budget. The music does much of the heavy lifting, but there are other details that show up: Beepers, pay phones, microfilm, an overhead projector. It doesn’t feel conspicuous until you really pay attention (or maybe I’m just old) but analog technology is also just more interesting, prop-wise, than endless footage of dossiers and ballistic analysis pulled up on one computer screen or another.
There’s even an extended sequence that takes place at the mall, a place where the average person used to blow hours of their day in a consumerist fog. Somehow the mall might be the most significant throwback of them all and it was smart to think of ways to build a story around it.
“NCIS: Origins” — 2 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: The two-hour premiere airs 8 p.m. Monday on CBS before moving to its regular time slot at 9 p.m. Mondays (streaming on Paramount+)
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
