Although Mark Harmon exited NCIS back in Season 19 and there are no signs of him returning to this procedural franchise’s flagship show anytime soon, we’re not done spending time with his character, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. CBS has given a straight-to-series order for a prequel show called NCIS: Origins. It will follow Gibbs in 1991, when he joined the law enforcement agency, and he’ll be accompanied by his mentor Mike Franks, who was previously played by Muse Watson. Now another character from the original series has been revealed to appear, and their inclusion makes a lot of sense.
According to TVLine, NCIS: Origins producers plan to include the younger version of Special Agent Vera Strickland, whom Nip/Tuck’s Roma Maffia first played. If the character’s name doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because she only ever appeared in the NCIS Season 11 episode “Under the Radar.” However, viewers learned that she used to be partnered with Mike Franks, so throwing her into the mix for Origins is fitting. Actually, it would have been weird if we didn’t see her.
What’s unclear, though, is how much we’ll see of the younger Vera Strickland in this prequel series. Per CBS’ announcement, Franks will be leading Gibbs as part of a “gritty, ragtag team” that’s operating out of the NCIS Camp Pendleton office. So even though it’s been established that Franks and Strickland were partnered up, does this mean she’ll be part of this team, or will their partnership officially be done by the time Origins started, and she’s simply stopping by to lend a hand?
That’s hard to say for now, although the fact that this news is being reported so early into the show’s development has me thinking that at the very least, we won’t just see the younger Vera in one episode like her older counterpart in NCIS. If she’s not a member of the main cast, then that would leave her recurring across the season, presumably as an NCIS agent who lends assistance to the team from time to time, then goes on with her own business.
In any case, with NCIS: Origins being set to air during the 2024-2025 TV season, we should be learning who will play Vera Strickland, along with Gibbs, Franks and the rest of their main cast cohorts, in the coming months. On the Gibbs front, it was clarified that Sean Harmon, Mark Harmon’s son who played a young Gibbs a handful of times on NCIS and is one of Origins’ executive producers, will not reprise the role, as he’s focused on his behind-the-scenes duties for this project. In addition to also executive producing, Mark Harmon will narrate the prequel.
We’ll keep passing along updates on NCIS: Origins’ development as they come in, including when it will specifically premiere on the 2024 TV schedule. Don’t forget you can stream NCIS and its spinoff shows with a Paramount+ subscription.
