After months of waiting, NCIS: Tony & Ziva is finally available to fans with Paramount+, but these fan-favorite characters’ return doesn’t mean they’ll be roping their old colleagues into the adventure right away. Even setting aside the rather sizable story brewing in NCIS season 23, characters like Gibbs and McGee have good reasons for not showing their faces just yet.
Understandably, many fans could make entire wish lists of NCIS cameos in Tony & Ziva that would be fun to see. Despite the inherent nostalgia hook of seeing Tiva together again, NCIS: Tony & Ziva still has its own separate story to tell apart from the flagship series. That’s especially true after the events of the NCIS season 22 finale.
Gibbs Is In Alaska & McGee Is In The Navy Yard With MCRT During NCIS: Tony & Ziva
The Spinoff’s European Setting Isn’t Exactly A Short Drive Away
Because NCIS: Tony & Ziva’s timeline fills in the gaps since the characters were last seen, the whereabouts of other NCIS characters are subject to change. However, the main storyline will still follow David and DiNozzo’s adventures in the present, which complicates bringing in characters from the flagship who no longer look similar enough to appear in the flashback timeline.
Although NCIS episode 200 suggested that isolation would be a negative outcome for Gibbs, Jethro retired to Alaska to enjoy the first sense of real peace he’s felt since his family’s deaths. He’s lately been spending his retirement narrating the most depressing parts of his life through NCIS: Origins, but it’s nice to see him embrace a hobby besides boats.
Meanwhile, Tim and the rest of the MCRT are still engaged with their work at the Navy Yard, where they must be short on resources since the real NCIS moved to Quantico rather a number of years ago. This means that seemingly no characters who know Tony and Ziva are actually in close proximity to them during the present storyline.
Even if the actors look different now, it’s arguably worth at least contemplating whether they could show up early in NCIS: Tony & Ziva when the story is filling in blanks from past years. But that timeline still places the main NCIS cast overseas from Tony & Ziva’s European setting. And they can’t just drop everything to help their friends.
Gibbs Has Been Retired & McGee Is Busy With His Official Work During Tony & Ziva’s Crisis
This Is Ironically The Worst Time For NCIS To Stage A Reunion
Thanks to NCIS: Tony & Ziva’s release window overlapping with the network series’ premieres, a first-ever franchise-wide NCIS crossover is a very real possibility. Unfortunately, crossing over Tony & Ziva with the flagship wouldn’t make a great deal of sense right now. Not only does the spinoff need to develop its own identity, but there are also relevant story issues.
Gibbs’ NCIS season 3 retirement ended on Ziva’s behalf, so it seems reasonable that she and Tony could rope him into their story again. But Gibbs’ previous return allowed him to make up for failing to prevent disaster in his last mission. Now that he’s retired on his own terms, Tiva wouldn’t presumably feel comfortable pulling him out of it.
Perhaps they’d feel more comfortable contacting someone like McGee or Palmer for help, but that would prove difficult as well. With NCIS season 23’s Carla Marino storyline about to hit the ground running, Parker’s requesting all hands on deck to help bring his father’s killer to justice. Unless Carla bounces off to Europe, nobody will be crossing paths with Tiva.
Additionally, both series’ narratives are moving quickly. NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 will only have two episodes left when NCIS season 23 premieres, so the MCRT would have to catch Carla immediately to find time for a European reunion. And if Tiva haven’t requested their friends’ help by then, there won’t be much time left for that to happen.
Will Any Of The Main NCIS Characters Show Up In Tony & Ziva?
There Are Better Arguments Against It (But Nothing’s Been Ruled Out)
Putting aside various story conflicts, the possibility of at least a few MCRT colleagues showing up in NCIS: Tony & Ziva isn’t far-fetched. In fact, it was revealed at the 2025 NCIS panel at San Diego Comic-Con that Jimmy’s been keeping in touch with Tony and sending him gifts to give to Tali. He’d be a shoo-in for a cameo.
Michael Weatherly himself hinted at another cameo he might like to see in a recent TV Guide interview. Unfortunately, Weatherly also hints in that same interview that there likely won’t be any particularly major NCIS cameos in Tony & Ziva for at least the first season. As Weatherly explains quite reasonably, the spinoff needs to finds its own legs first:
“I think in the initial outing of [NCIS: Tony & Ziva], it was really important that it felt like they were in their own world and that we needed to sort of build and understand that world. Because it’s more grounded in a way. There’s less music telling you how to feel. There are fewer propulsive plot devices, like we’ve got to get to the thing and find them. And just when you are missing that, then all of a sudden, we are doing that. Like the show does do it.
They just do it in a different kind of energy and pattern, and pacing. And so, I think we wanted to figure out what the show was, because it would be weird if suddenly Abby shows up. By the way, I love Pauley Perrette, just from the moment I ran into her. Pauley Perrette is a fantastic human. But we needed to really create the world. And then later, anyone who comes into it, we would have to make it appropriate to the way it feels. And to give somebody a sense of, they would have to watch it and go, ‘Oh, I get it.’”
His thoughts are laid out fairly stream-of-consciousness, but the basic summary of his main point is that NCIS: Tony & Ziva is too tonally different from the flagship to carry over characters without some adjustment. If even Tony’s previous characterization is too over-the-top for the spinoff, any other actors crossing over would have to adapt their performances as he did.
It would be fun to see Mark Harmon’s NCIS return or a new three-way adventure starring McTiva. For now, however, NCIS: Tony & Ziva has only one job, and that’s to succeed well enough that fans might see those stories play out in the future when they can occur more naturally. Until then, the spinoff’s own characters must take priority.
Source: TV Guide
Enjoy ScreenRant’s primetime coverage? Click below to sign up for our weekly Network TV newsletter (make sure to check “Network TV” in your preferences) and get the inside scoop from actors and showrunners on your favorite series.
SIGN UP NOW
NCIS: Tony & Ziva
- Release Date
-
September 4, 2025
- Network
-
Paramount+
-
Michael Weatherly
Tony DiNozzo
-
