The NCIS opening credits for the Season 20 premiere looked a lot different than in the past.
For the first 19 seasons of the hit drama, actor Mark Harmon was the first name shown on the NCIS opening credits.
So when the episode A Family Matter debuted on Monday night, it was a shock to see Sean Murray as the first member of the NCIS cast to be featured.
Harmon had starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the head of an NCIS team that helped solve crimes involving the Navy or Navy personnel.
A few episodes into Season 19, Gibbs was shown retiring to Alaska, where he would finally take some time for himself after years of service.
This was also where the introduction of Alden Parker (played by Gary Cole) took place. Parker took over the running of Gibbs’ team after Agent Tim McGee (Murray) turned it down.
Mark Harmon still has an executive producer credit
Even though we didn’t get to see the face of Mark Harmon and the character of Gibbs during the opening credits for Season 20, Episode 1, his name did appear a bit later as an executive producer of the show.
It’s good to see that he is behind the scenes, even though we may never see Harmon return to the show as Gibbs again.
Recently, Harmon did speak about his time on NCIS, giving a bit of closure to his presence on the program.
NCIS Season 20 begins with a big crossover event
Debuting NCIS and NCIS: Hawai’i as a crossover event this fall was an interesting idea carried out well by the two shows. Even though we didn’t get to see Harmon playing Gibbs, there were several interesting stories taking place.
Revealing The Raven’s identity was also a big deal, answering some important questions from the big cliffhanger that ended NCIS Season 19.
NCIS Season 20 rolls on with another new episode debuting on September 26. For fans who want to go back and re-watch the premiere for Season 20, it is available for streaming on Paramount+.
There was also some news revealed by former NCIS star Pauley Perrette, as she talked about suffering a bad stroke. Perrette played Abby Sciuto for the first 15 seasons of NCIS, but she decided to leave the show before Season 16 began filming.
NCIS airs Mondays at 9/8c on CBS.