NCIS: Origins Poses a Huge Risk for the Whole Franchise

The NCIS universe isn’t taking any break after the flagship show’s season 21 came to its end earlier in May as the franchise is set to come back this fall with three installments, two of which are a completely new vision of the famous story.

Aside from a spinoff that will revolve around Anthony DiNozzo and Ziva David’s career paths and relationships after both quit the original series, the franchise is also giving broader horizons to the background story of its biggest figure, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, whose departure from NCIS in season 19 left a lot of questions unanswered.

Though the upcoming show is already heavily criticized by NCIS fans months before its potential release, NCIS: Origins still appears to be a breath of fresh air for the series’ universe, yet with its own risks.

NCIS: Origins will take its viewers back to the 1990s when young Gibbs was at the start of his career as a NCIS Special Agent. So far it’s unclear whether the spinoff will keep exploring the character’s career path or will rather make a focus shift to his personal life, but its storyline already seems to be a unique take on someone’s story in the show as NCIS: Origins will feature another actor who is set to portray younger Gibbs.

Initially played by Mark Harmon in the original show, the character’s role this time was given to Austin Stowell who, putting aside all the excitement he must’ve felt upon landing a leading role in one of the long-standing franchise’s shows, now should be extremely careful to eventually handle Gibbs’ portrayal.

Unlike NCIS: Tony & Ziva where the leading roles are reprised by the original actors, NCIS: Origins threatens to jeopardize the whole franchise’s reputation should Austin Stowell be misled in his part. Throughout NCIS’ all seasons that featured Gibbs in the show, the most devoted fans have surely been very attentive regarding the character’s personality and specific traits that defined him as the team leader.

This has been recently proved by harsh criticism of Austin Stowell’s hairstyle in NCIS: Origins’ first promotional photo, with many fans claiming that Gibbs could never go for that cut. Given that such seemingly minor details immediately caught eagle-eyed fans’ attention, the whole series can’t really be safe from getting more heat for Gibbs’ distorted portrayal when NCIS: Origins finally hits the screens.

The only thing that remains clear for now is that fans’ reaction to Austin Stowell’s job, whether it’s going to be good or not that much, won’t take long to flood all the social media when the show arrives at CBS this fall.