Warning: spoilers ahead for the January 9 crossover between NCIS, NCIS: Hawai’i, and NCIS: Los Angeles.
The NCIS franchise has officially made history with its very first three-part crossover between the current shows. Three-parters have worked well for other franchises (including the FBIs elsewhere on CBS), but it was hard to say how well three NCIS shows would be able to blend together in one event. After all, each of the three series has an ensemble cast, is set in a different place, and has key differences from the others down to the color of their crime scene gloves. Now that the crossover with Hawai'i and Los Angeles has aired, there’s a big question to consider: should it happen again?
Well, I have to commend the people at all three shows who made the crossover happen, because it was an ambitious endeavor that I would say worked pretty well. Select members of the cast crossed over to the other series and while the rest were mostly showcased in their own episodes, which was particularly notable in the case of LA, with only Sam and Callen appearing in the other two. Since LA wasn’t part of either of the other two recent crossovers, this event marked the first time that some of the California characters crossed paths with the agents from the Aloha State.
The case was complicated, as expected, with the suicide of a professor bringing the three teams together and then escalating to involve the CIA, an assassination program, a big explosion, and even one long torture session. The end result was an event that was more cinematic than what we usually see from the small screen, and more interesting to me than the two NCIS/Hawai’i two-parters so far. I’d love to see another three-part crossover... at some point. I’m just not sure that CBS should do it again any time soon.
The franchise had to raise the stakes sky-high to find a way to justify one case involving teams from Washington D.C., Hawai’i, and Los Angeles working together, and there were a lot of time skips for travel across the country and/or the ocean. If cases happen on such a massive scale on a regular basis, it might start to feel contrived – or at least much less special, and potentially even make the regular episodes feel less interesting.
The shows are simply set too far apart for it to make sense to happen too often, and while the actors have had great things to say about the experience, even the characters shot down the idea of doing it again. That’s not to say that there’s anything lacking from the NCIS franchise that the idea of frequent three-parters sounds difficult; the situation is the same for the FBIs.
While FBI is set in New York, Most Wanted travels around the country, and International is stationed out of Budapest. Only one three-parter has happened so far, and that was to launch International as a freshman series back in 2021. Also, even though The CW's Arrowverse never reached the heights of an NCIS installment even in its six-show heyday, it also had to reach to find an excuse for its very different shows set in very different places to combine for multiparters, some of which were more successful than others.
Crossovers for the three One Chicago shows on NBC were an annual event back before COVID production complications, and they still share characters frequently, which makes sense because all are set in one city. The same is true for ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, both set in Seattle. That kind of in-universe convenience simply isn’t there for NCIS. Plus, the three shows usually don’t all air on the same night; January 9 was a special case with LA airing on Monday.
All of this said, I would say that this tricky three-parter may have set the stage for easier and possibly more frequent two-parters. NCIS and Hawai’i already pulled it off a couple of times, and LA technically crossed over with a Hawai’i-set show back in the day when Kensi traveled over to Hawaii Five-0, so there's arguably a precedent. I’m all for the occasional big event across the trio of series, but three-parters on the scale of this one should be pretty rare. As LA’s LL Cool J said, this felt like a Marvel event!
Plus, each of the three has plenty going on without cases that regularly require mixing it up with the others. News broke back in December that a new character was on the way to Hawai’i to possibly cause some trouble for Tennant, while the LA team continues to deal with not having Hetty around. As for the original, former star Michael Weatherly dropped some comments that may be teasing a return as DiNozzo for the “Tiva” reunion that fans missed after Cote de Pablo's temporary return back in Season 17.
Keep up with what’s happening in the three shows with new episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Hawai’i on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET, and NCIS: Los Angeles on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. You can also find more viewing options with our 2023 TV premiere schedule.
