Mark Harmon will make a full-time return to the NCIS-verse in the 2026-27 season.
Harmon will appear on screen in every episode of prequel series NCIS: Origins, reprising his long-time NCIS role of Leroy Jethro Gibbs in addition to narrating and executive producing the series. Harmon guest-starred on the show last season as part of a crossover with NCIS that spanned the prequel’s 1990s setting and the present-day world of the flaghship series. He also appeared in the series premiere in 2024.
Season three of Origins will take a similar approach, minus the crossover: It will feature Harmon as part of a present-day mystery that connects to Gibbs’ time at Camp Pendleton in the ’90s and spans the entire season. That heavily serialized element is also something of a departure for the NCIS franchise, which has built a library of more than 1,100 episodes across seven series (with an eighth, NCIS: New York, on the way) mostly on the back of self-contained procedural stories.
CBS announced Harmon’s return in a social media post Tuesday; see it below.
Austin Stowell plays the younger Gibbs in NCIS: Origins. Kyle Schmid, Mariel Molino, Tyla Abercrumbie, Diany Rodriguez and Caleb Foote also star.
Harmon played Gibbs for 18-plus seasons on NCIS, departing a few episodes into the 2021-22 season. He came back into the franchise with Origins, which CBS ordered straight to series in 2024. CBS Studios produces the prequel and all other shows in the franchise.
David J. North is the showrunner for season three and executive produces with Mark Harmon, Sean Harmon, Michele Greco and NCIS: Los Angeles alum Eric Christian Olsen.
