One of the big draws on NCIS for a long time was watching the ‘will they, won’t they’ dynamic between Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David, with the former having been one of the CBS show’s original main cast members, and the latter coming aboard in Season 3. While both actors have long since departed NCIS as series regulars, they’ve popped back up on the procedural franchise’s flagship show in recent years. Now it’s been officially announced that Weatherly and de Pablo are reteaming for a Tony and Ziva spinoff, and as a longtime NCIS fan, I’m so jazzed about this news.
While this spinoff doesn’t have an official title yet, it has scored a 10-episode order, and production is scheduled to start later this year. Rather than air on CBS, it’s being developed for Paramount+ subscribers. In addition to reprising their characters, Weatherly and de Pablo will executive produce alongside The Magicians’ John McNamara, who wrote the premiere episode and will serve as the showrunner, as well as Laurie Lieser, Christina Strain and Shelley Meals.
This unnamed NCIS spinoff will mark the first time Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo have reunited onscreen in 10 years. Per the official synopsis, the upcoming TV show will follow Tony and Ziva raising their daughter Tali together, but after Tony’s security company is attacked, the couple “must go on the run across Europe, try to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.” Weatherly and de Pablo said the following about the spinoff in a joint statement:
We’ve been talking about this story for many years, and now with John McNamara at the helm, we are ready. The world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears and laughter. We also want to acknowledge and thank the fans from around the world who supported the ‘TIVA’ movement for years. To this day, they say hello in grocery stores and on the street to tell us how much these characters mean to them and ask what Tony and Ziva are up to now. This is for you!
This is the second NCIS spinoff to be announced within the past couple months, as in early January, we learned about NCIS: Origins, which will follow Leroy Jethro Gibbs in 1991, when he first joined the law enforcement agency. Currently the NCIS lineup consists of the original show, Hawai’i and Sydney, and past spinoffs included Los Angeles and New Orleans. Assuming those first three shows are renewed, then once Origins and this spinoff centered on Tony and Ziva get off the ground, fans will have their pick of five NCIS shows to check out, the most that have ever been on at one time.
As someone who’s been watching NCIS since 2008, five years after it premiered on CBS, hearing that we’re finally getting Tony and Ziva paired back together again is most welcome news. For those who need a refresher, Cote de Pablo exited the show at the beginning of Season 11, and by the end of Season 13, Ziva was believed to have been killed. Tony, upon learning that Ziva had given birth to Tali, left NCIS in that same season’s finale to take care of her.
However, by the Season 16 finale, it was revealed that Ziva was actually still alive, and in Season 17, we watched her in a handful of episodes track down the woman who’d been targeting her and forced her to fake her death. Ziva ultimately succeeded in doing this, and when we left off with her, she was heading to Paris to finally reunite with Tony and Tali, as she’d been steering clear of them in order to keep them safe. Then earlier this month, Michael Weatherly made a surprise cameo at the end of NCIS’ Ducky tribute episode, his first time appearing on the show since his Season 13 exit.
Like many fans, I’d been hoping for a long time that Tony and Ziva would be seen together on NCIS, but this spinoff is just as good of news, if not better. Now we get to see Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo take center stage in this universe, and it’ll be the first of these NCIS spinoffs not to actually focus on people working in the title agency. And besides, given how often NCIS crossover both big and small happen nowadays, there’s always the chance these two could pop by their old stomping grounds on the original show at some point.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates on the Tony and Ziva spinoff, including what it will be officially titled. For queries regarding currently-airing programming or shows set to premiere soon, check out the 2024 TV schedule.
