The NCIS franchise is still going strong on CBS, with the flagship series, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney all airing on the 2025 TV schedule and renewed for the next TV season. These shows, as well as the concluded Los Angeles, New Orleans and Hawai’i spinoffs, can also be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription, but soon the franchise will be delivering its first series exclusive to that platform. NCIS: Tony & Ziva is on the way, and Brian Dietzen, who worked with the spinoff’s lead actors Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo for years on NCIS, shared with us why fans should get excited about this new installment.
During my interview with Dietzen about the NCIS episode “Close to Home,” which brought back Jimmy Palmer’s daughter Victoria (played by Elle Graper), I asked the actor what he’s looking forward to seeing most in NCIS: Tony & Ziva. He informed me he’s actually privy to some of what’s coming, as he talks to Weatherly “quite often” and texts with de Pablo, sharing:
I’m so excited. It sounds very action-y, it sounds kind of cool. I can’t really say too much about it because I didn’t work on it or anything. I did get a look at a script or two, but yeah, there’s a lot of moments in there that I’m like, ‘Oh man, it calls back on certain NCIS dynamics,’ but I have a feeling it’s not going to be filmed and told like a standard NCIS in any way. Because they’re not looking at a case of the week with a lieutenant or a petty officer who’s been… the crime has been committed or something like that. It’s a very different type of show, and I could be more excited for it.
While the NCIS shows all have no shortage of differences, from locations to NCIS: Origins being set in a different time period, they’ve all followed the same case of the week model. NCIS: Tony & Ziva is breaking with tradition by telling a motor serialized story. That’s actually the reason the spinoff is going straight to Paramount+, following in the footsteps of the footsteps of the Criminal Minds revival. The show being called NCIS: Tony & Ziva is ironic considering the title characters no longer work for the law enforcement agency, but we don’t need to get into the weeds with that.
From what Brian Dietzen shared with me, it sounds like Tony & Ziva will be a more intense show compared to NCIS, but not lacking in the spirit of the show from which Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David originating. He continued:
I think it’s gonna be really, really great. I think they’re both such terrific actors, and the dynamic between those characters is so iconic that… Yeah, I think it’s gonna be something really, really special, and it’s gonna be a departure while retaining some of that NCIS DNA.
Tony & Ziva haven’t been seen onscreen together since the NCIS Season 11 episode “Past, Present, and Future” in 2013. However, the two were finally able to reunite with each other after Ziva was finally able to come out of hiding in NCIS Season 17. Now fans will finally get to see them parenting their daughter Tali together, but obviously we can’t have their lives staying calm. After Tony’s security company is attacked, he and Ziva will be forced to go on the run to figure out who’s targeting them and, as stated in the show’s official synopsis, “maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.”
NCIS: Tony & Ziva finished filming towards the end of February, so now we sit back and wait to learn when it will premiere on Paramount+. Here’s hoping that the spinoff meets, if not exceeds Brian Dietzen’s expectations based off what he’s been looped in on. Meanwhile, you can see him playing Jimmy Palmer on NCIS Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS.
