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 four shows while they brought in this other character. And I think the way they did it was smart, because rather than him leaving and then one day there's a knock on the door. ‘Hi, I'm the new guy.’ We did shows together involved in the same case. He worked for the FBI and they were working in tandem and they had conflict and all.
Executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson admitted in 2023 that he and others initially thought Mark Harmon leaving NCIS was the “death knell,” though fortunately that didn’t happen. Even better, rather than just take off after Season 18, Harmon stuck around for the first few Season 19 episodes, which allowed for a smoother transition from Gibbs to Parker. The latter was introduced as an FBI agent who met Gibbs while they were investigating the same perpetrator, though Gibbs was doing so as a private citizen. While Parker was later tasked with arresting Gibbs, he allowed him to go free in Alaska, which resulted in him being fired from the FBI.
Gary Cole Shared The Key Difference Between Gibbs And Parker
It didn’t take long for Alden Parker to get back on his feet though, as he accepted Director Vance’s offer to lead the team at the end of “Face the Strange.” While there are plenty of differences between Parker and Gibbs, including Parker being more open to modern technology and his co-workers different kinds of pastries, Gary Cole also mentioned during the podcast what NCIS executive producer Mark Horowitz told him about the key thing that separates these two men:
Horowitz said something which made sense, I guess, in a broad way, which was that if Mark was the stern father that everybody was afraid of and/or trying to please, this guy was the crazy uncle or just the whoever that even though he's got the title of leader of the team, he's only using the authority when it's necessary or just for coordination. Otherwise he's just another guy in the room trying to relate to everybody that's around him. And that's how I went at it.
Gary Cole is now in his fourth season of NCIS, and there’s no indication he’ll be leaving the show anytime soon. Season 22 still has yet to further explore the little girl that Alden Parker hallucinated seeing when he was injured in the Season 21 finale. We’ve since learned that Parker has no idea who she is, so answers should be forthcoming as the season goes on. As for Mark Harmon, he’s now executive producing and narrating NCIS: Origins, and he also briefly reprised Gibbs on camera during the first episode.
NCIS airs Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS. After their airing, new episodes can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription alongside the procedural franchise’s other shows.
