The Correct Order To Watch The NCIS Shows (Including The Prequel Series Origins)

Do you have roughly 1,000 hours to spare and a passion for stalwart procedural crime dramas? Great news: you can start watching every episode of "NCIS" and its multitude of spinoffs now and be finished with the show sometime before the next decade! Seriously, though, the long-running, incredibly popular series has, by this point, garnered enough spinoffs, prequels, and sequels to help keep the lights on at CBS for a long, long time.

In the past two years alone, two "NCIS" spin-offs have premiered, one has been greenlit, and another has gone to the big TV graveyard in the sky. It's a lot to keep track of, but luckily, the show's chronology is pretty straightforward. With the exception of a new prequel, all seven "NCIS"-adjacent shows take place in the present day in chronological order, although crossover events still make any watch-through complicated. If you are in the market for a marathon binge-watch, you're going to want to watch the shows in the most logical order: by release date, with special attention to a few special show-hopping storylines. In other words:

• "JAG" ("NCIS" pilot episodes)
• "NCIS"
• "NCIS: Los Angeles"
• "NCIS: New Orleans"
• "NCIS: Hawai'i"
• "NCIS: Sydney"
• "NCIS: Origins"
• "NCIS: Tony & Ziva"

Before CBS built its primetime lineup around the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, another acronym captured audiences attention for seasons on end: "JAG," also known as the Judge Advocate General. A U.S. Navy-based crime show in its own right, "JAG" aired on NBC in 1995 before moving over to CBS — home of all future "NCIS"-related properties — in 1997.

You don't have to watch all of "JAG" to enjoy "NCIS," and plenty of fans don't even realize the two shows have a connection. But if you think of every subsequent "NCIS" spinoff as a copy of a copy, then "JAG" is the super-legible original left in the printer. Alternately praised for its drama and criticized as right-wing propaganda by critics at outlets like Paste, "JAG" followed uniformed lawyers played by Catherine Bell and David James Elliott, and audiences ate it up (albeit, older audiences: the show's average viewer was over 55).

Before you start panicking about how to make space in your schedule for 227 episodes of an "NCIS" precursor for Baby Boomers, rest assured: only two episodes of "JAG" are directly related to "NCIS." While a few "JAG" characters pop up in "NCIS" over the years, the two titles' biggest common ground is in the Season 8 "JAG" two-parter "Ice Queen"/"Meltdown." The episodes served as a backdoor pilot for "NCIS," introducing Jethro Gibbs, Anthony DiNozzo, Abby Scuito, and more. For the full "NCIS" experience, check out the Season 8 "JAG" two-parter before diving into the main series.

None of the six shows mentioned below would exist if not for the massive, enduring popularity of the original "NCIS." The series premiered on CBS in 2003, when American pop culture was going through a period of obsession with post-9/11 military-set stories. But while the fervor for other shows like "24" eventually died down, "NCIS" only grew in popularity over time. It even battled NFL Sunday Football for television's top spot in its 10th season, per The Washington Post.

Aside from the two "JAG" episodes that introduced the members of the show's Naval Criminal Investigative Service, "NCIS" is where you'll want to start your watch-through. With a whopping 479 episodes and counting, the dramatic procedural should keep you up to your eyeballs in treason cases and suspicious deaths for the foreseeable future. Mark Harmon stars as big boss Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and the actor has served as an executive producer on the show since 2008. Much of the same cast has stuck with the series for well over a decade, though newer seasons have focused more on characters like Gary Cole's Alden Parker and Wilmer Valderrama's Nicholas Torres.

If you notice a moment when whatever magic made "NCIS" work starts to disappear, it's probably when Pauley Perrette, who played lovable forensics goth Abby, left the show in 2018. She did so after speaking up about an alleged on-set safety incident. Harmon, who was mentioned by name in Perrette's statements about her exit, also left the show in 2021 to pursue other projects. Lucky for fans, though, there are still plenty of other stories from the world of "NCIS" going strong.

The first "NCIS" spinoff to hit the airwaves is also often cited as the best. "NCIS: Los Angeles" opened up shop on the West coast (the flagship show is set around Washington, D.C.) in 2009, and the series thrived with its own set of characters — and wild crimes — until it drew to a close in 2023. "NCIS: Los Angeles" often took a slightly lighter approach to its bad guy-hunting storylines, with rapper LL Cool J and "Grey's Anatomy" alum Chris O'Donnell in the lead roles and sunny, endlessly ridiculous Hollywood as the backdrop to their shenanigans.

Like "NCIS" itself, "Los Angeles" was created after a backdoor pilot episode introduced its setting and characters. Even if you choose to skip most of "NCIS," it's still worthwhile to watch Season 6's two-part special "Legend," which sees the NCIS squad head to California to liaise with O'Donnell's Grisha Callen and the rest of the team about a possible terrorist sleeper cell in the city. If you want to watch both shows simultaneously, wait to start "NCIS: Los Angeles" until you make it to the latter part of "NCIS" Season 6 to keep continuity. "Los Angeles" also crosses over with other CBS shows, like "Hawaii Five-O" and "Scorpion," but those are largely extraneous to the "NCIS" universe.

In 2014, CBS and the late "NCIS" showrunner Gary Glasberg had an idea for another show — one that would take the wildly popular naval investigations of the two previous series to the American South. Glasberg penned the, you guessed it, two-part backdoor pilot that introduced the New Orleans, Louisiana-based investigative team in Season 11 of "NCIS." Titled "Crescent City," the episodes feature bodies found in a bayou and a dead U.S. Congressman. They also introduce the New Orleans team, which is headed up by the former Starfleet Captain Scott Bakula (playing a guy who goes by the name "King"), "Fast & Furious" castmate Lucas Black, and Zoe McLellan, who played a different character on "JAG."

"NCIS: New Orleans" had a few things the other existing "NCIS" shows didn't, like "The Shield" alum CCH Pounder playing the team's medical examiner, as well as a setting that allowed for culturally and geographically unique cases. The show had its share of obstacles to overcome, though, from so-so reviews to the loss of Glasberg in 2016 to sexual harassment allegations made against second showrunner Brad Kern, who was fired in 2018 (per TVLine). The series eventually bowed out in 2023, making it the first "NCIS" show to prove that at least some iteration of the series could end. To watch all of "NCIS: New Orleans," you'll also want to keep an eye out for two other "NCIS" crossover episodes in the flagship show's 13th and 14th seasons.

The shortest-lived show in the "NCIS" franchise, "NCIS: Hawai'i" started in 2021 in what appeared to be an overt attempt to keep the Aloha spirit — and the viewers who tuned in to see the idyllic island location — alive on CBS post-"Hawaii Five-O." Based in the Pearl Harbor Field Office, the show never quite reached the highs of, say, the "NCIS" Pearl Harbor episode starring Christopher Lloyd. It stuck around for just three seasons before coming to a close in 2024 (with the network citing low-ish ratings and high production costs as the reasons for "Hawai'i" being canceled).

The series starred "Entertainment Tonight" and "TRL" correspondent Vanessa Lachey, model and actor Noah Mills, and Alex Tarrant, who went on to play Valandil in Prime Video's "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." Despite its relatively short run (with 54 episodes total, "Hawai'i" didn't reach the typical syndication threshold), the show does have a lot of overlap with other "NCIS" series. If you're watching all the shows in release order (i.e. according to this list), you'll want to make sure that "Hawai'i" syncs up with both "NCIS: Los Angeles" and the original "NCIS," as the three shared a crossover event in 2023.

After conquering D.C., California, Louisiana, and Hawaii, "NCIS" took the, ahem, natural next step: moving to Australia. Yes, even though "NCIS" revolves around the American military, its next spinoff series after "Hawai'i" took place on the other side of the world. "NCIS: Sydney" was crafted specifically for Paramount+ in Australia, but it landed on CBS in America after networks began scrambling to fill lineup time amidst the 2023 WGA and SAG strikes. Unlike some of its predecessors, however, "Sydney" is still going strong, with a new season on the way at the time of writing.

Perhaps because of its international origins, "NCIS: Sydney" has less franchise overlap than most "NCIS" spinoffs, with no crossover episodes to date and a fairly self-contained cast led by Olivia Swann ("DC's Legends of Tomorrow"), Todd Lasance ("Spartacus"), and Sean Sagar ("Our Girl"). If you're looking for a change of pace from the typical ra-ra American crime plot, "Sydney" does offer something slightly different; it explores a partnership between the American Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Australian Federal Police, cultural misunderstandings and all. Without tie-in episodes to ground it, "NCIS: Sydney" is technically an optional entry for viewing, but it's also a nice change of pace and a speedy binge-watch.

Here's where things get tricky. While all the above-mentioned "NCIS" shows take place in the present day, "NCIS: Origins" is a prequel series, meaning that chronology purists will want to watch it before any other shows on this list. I think that would be a mistake, though, as like most prequels, it touches on key moments in the life of its still-developing hero that will be more meaningful to fans who have already seen where he ended up. In this case, the hero in question is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the man who anchored the original "NCIS" series for a jaw-dropping 19 seasons, here played by "Whiplash" and "Bridge of Spies" actor Austin Stowell.

Stowell plays a younger Gibbs who's new on the Naval investigations scene, and die-hard fans of the franchise will enjoy seeing him as a rookie rather than a seasoned leader. Set at the Southern California Camp Pendleton station in 1991, the series' lone season to date sees Gibbs working under Mike Franks, the man who shows up in "NCIS" as his former mentor. Franks is played here by "Blood Ties" actor Kyle Schmid, subbing in for Muse Watson (who previously played the character in his older years). Interestingly, Harmon returned for the show, narrating it as Gibbs from the future, "How I Met Your Mother"-style. You don't technically need to watch any other "NCIS" show to tune into this one, but plenty of original series characters show up, so it makes the most sense to keep up the release order watch-through. 

"NCIS: Origins" is still in its first season.

The latest "NCIS" spinoff will reunite one of the original series' most-loved couples, but "NCIS: Tony & Ziva" isn't on the CBS release schedule yet. The show has been in the works since February 2024, and will bring back "NCIS" stars Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo for what's expected to be the franchise's first direct sequel. According to Deadline, the series will pick up where Season 17 of "NCIS" left off, with (spoilers for the flagship series here) Weatherly's Agent DiNozzo reuniting with Special Agent Ziva (de Pablo) years after she was initially presumed dead. This makes its place in the watch-through a no-brainer, as the show would likely be pretty incomprehensible without prior "NCIS" knowledge.

The new series will pick up with the pair raising their daughter in Paris. Of course, their retirement is interrupted when DiNozzo's security company is hacked and the whole family ends up on the run. "We've been talking about this story for many years, and now with ['Physical' and 'The Magicians' executive producer] John McNamara at the helm, we are ready," the show's co-stars said in a statement. "The world of Tony and Ziva (and daughter Tali) promises to be an action-packed roller coaster fueled by love, danger, tears, and laughter." The show is due out on Paramount+, likely later in 2025.