Longevity is one of the keys to 'NCIS' success
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Gibbs (Mark Harmon) finds himself talking to his late friend Mike Franks (Muse Watson) on Tuesday's "NCIS," the series' 200th episode.
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PASADENA, Calif. -- CBS's "NCIS" remains the No. 1 scripted drama this season and next week it hits the 200-episode mark, quite an achievement for a series that didn't become an indisputable hit until about five years into its current nine-season run.
Generally, TV shows are either successful out of the gate or grow into hits over the course of a season or two. Five years to become a hit? That's not the norm.
At a CBS press conference last month, "NCIS" star Mark Harmon attributed the show's ratings improvement so late in life to multiple factors.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, CBS.
"From the very beginning, we were a show that wasn't good enough to get all that noticed and wasn't bad enough to get canceled," he said. "And we had a lot of time just to get to know each other and just to do this show and just to work on the foundation of what this show started as. And we've had changes along the way that have, in my opinion, greatly influenced us."
He points to the additions of cast members Sean Murray (in season one), Carnegie Mellon University alum Cote de Pablo (in season three) and Rocky Carroll (in season six) as significant in the life of the show and audience appreciation of it.
Actress Pauley Perrette said another factor in the show's longevity is the cast's attitude toward "NCIS."
"Part of what keeps it so alive and so fresh all the time is that we all love our show. That's such a big deal," she said. "When I tell [fans] we're having so much fun, they're, like, 'No. Everyone can tell.' That's huge because just bringing a sense of not only gratefulness, but joy to your workplace every single day [is important and] it's not just us; it's also our crew. We have the best crew on the planet who have been together so long. Everybody is excited when we come back from hiatus. We're excited when we start our first day of the season. It's like the first day of school. We're excited to see new scripts. And part of that is not only do we love each other, but we're all huge fans of our own show."
First Published February 2, 2012 12:00 am
