After over 20 years, NCIS isn’t just a TV show; it’s practically part of America’s cable system — like a water tower, always there. At its 2014 peak it drew 21 million viewers a week, making it the most-watched drama for nearly a decade. The show’s success was mostly thanks to the original cast’s amazing chemistry, but they’ve since gone their separate ways, retired, or had very public exits. The question isn’t whether the show survived their exits (it did, surprisingly), but what happened to the people who made it worth watching.
Mark Harmon played Leroy Jethro Gibbs for 19 seasons, he led the team with his intense stares, famous head-slaps, and the unexplained hobby of boat-sanding in his basement. His exit in Season 19 was true to character: we saw a few scenes, a quiet fade-out in rural Alaska, and no big, teary goodbyes. He’s still an executive producer for the main show and narrates NCIS: Origins, a prequel about a young Gibbs in 1990s San Diego. It’s classic Harmon: influence without being in the spotlight.
Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto) had one of TV’s messiest exits. As the caffeine-fueled, pigtailed forensic scientist, she was the heart of the team for 15 seasons — Perrette left in 2018 following what she described publicly as a “hostile work environment,” specifically pointing to an incident involving Harmon and his dog. CBS and Harmon didn’t comment on her claims. The whole thing got a lot of media attention and was never officially settled. After Abby, Perrette starred in the CBS sitcom Broke, which got canceled after one season, and has since largely stepped back from acting. She remains active in charity, especially advocating for Los Angeles’ homeless community. Whatever happened when she left, she doesn’t seem to regret putting distance between herself and the show.
Michael Weatherly left NCIS after Season 13 to star in Bull, a legal drama on CBS about a jury-consulting firm. That show ran for six seasons, ending in 2022. Its last season was overshadowed by a sexual harassment lawsuit from co-star Eliza Dushku, which CBS settled for $9.5 million; Weatherly later apologized. Cote de Pablo, who had left NCIS herself in 2013 (reportedly over creative differences about her character Ziva David’s storyline), came back for a few episodes in Seasons 16 and 17 before Ziva was written out again. Now, the two are reuniting for NCIS: Tony & Ziva, a Paramount+ limited series following the characters across Europe—a direct gift to the devoted “Tiva” fanbase that kept their story alive for a decade.
Sean Murray has stuck around longer than anyone. He joined NCIS in Season 1 as Timothy McGee, a recurring tech analyst who eventually became a series regular, then a senior agent, and now, pretty much the show’s memory keeper. He was there when Kate Todd died in Season 2, watched Ziva leave, come back, and leave again, and he’s still on the call sheet as the series figures out its identity without Gibbs. Murray isn’t a flashy story — no dramatic exit, no spinoff, no big headlines. But 22 uninterrupted seasons on network television’s longest-running drama is a huge accomplishment in itself.
David McCallum, who played Dr. Donald Mallard from the pilot until he passed away in September 2023 at 90, gave the show something procedurals rarely have: a real sense of history. McCallum had been working in television since the 1950s, and he brought a kind of seasoned authenticity that the show couldn’t have faked. His death was written into the show, and that episode got the kind of attention the series doesn’t often see anymore. For a series this old, you don’t just lose a character; you lose a beloved friend.
Gibbs had a rule: “When you decide to walk away, don’t look back.” But the stories of this original cast prove otherwise. You can leave the basement, change careers, or move to Europe—but for the actors who defined NCIS, the agency never really leaves you.
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