There was a time when it seemed impossible for NCIS to keep going without Mark Harmon leading the charge as Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Then in Season 18, there were rumblings that Harmon was getting up to leave the popular CBS show , and he ultimately did just that after the first four episodes of Season 19. But NCIS still goes on, with Season 22 airing on the 2024 TV schedule , and Gary Cole’s Alden Parker taking over as team leader immediately after Gibbs’ departure.
But it wasn’t an abrupt transition from one character to the other, and Gary Cole talked about how much he liked that while recalling the creation of Parker. Gary Cole Was Pleased With The Transition From Gibbs To Parker Gary Cole visited Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch to chat with hosts Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo (who will reprise their characters, Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David, for the streaming-exclusive spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva ) for the podcast’s season finale. Here’s what the actor had to say about how things unfolded after Mark Harmon decided he didn’t want to be in NCIS anymore: Mark, I guess, wanted to leave, and when that was discussed or came up, and I don't know when it actually came up, it came up somewhere between season 18 and 19, they weren't sure what they were going to do there.
There was talk that they would just end it. And from what I heard..
. I don't know why he would be surprised by that because it could have been a possibility. But then he agreed to begin the 19th year and do fou.
