After 11 years, NCIS is finally giving a missing character their proper debut. Widely considered a TV institution now, proof of the procedural’s enduring popularity is the continued evolution of the NCIS franchise. Besides the flagship, which is in the process of bouncing back in the ratings following a significant drop in the charts, CBS is also airing two other offshoots to make up for the so-called Super Tuesday: NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney.
Despite taking place at the same time, NCIS: Sydney has fewer ties to the flagship, hence why the network is focusing on strengthening the connections between NCIS: Origins and its parent show. While the prequel’s events take place three decades prior to what’s going on in Navy Yard, Leroy Jethro Gibbs keeps them connected. CBS has already tackled its very first NCIS and its prequel crossover in the 2025-2026 TV cycle, and moving forward, it endeavors to fill in more narrative gaps in Gibbs’ history.
NCIS: Origins Properly Debuts Dan McLane
Gibbs and Franks out in the woods during an emotional scene in NCIS OriginsSonja Flemming / ©CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection
On the heels of casting young Dwayne Pride in NCIS: Origins, CBS is rounding up the famous Fed Five — a group of highly-accomplished NIS agents in the early ’90s sent to do sensitive and more challenging missions. The group was first established in NCIS season 11, episode 18, “Crescent City (Part 1)”, which also functioned as NCIS: New Orleans backdoor pilot. It was revealed that Scott Bakula’s Pride, Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and Muse Watson’s Mike Franks, Stuart Margolin’s Felix Betts, and Dan McLane.
While all other four members of Fed Five had their respective original actors, McLane wasn’t officially cast in the 2014 episode. It was his death who was the inciting incident for Pride and Gibbs to reunite and work the case together. 11 years later, CBS is finally attaching an actor to McLane, as Mark Deklin will play “the highly revered veteran field agent working out of the Panama office who is called in by the Camp Pendleton team to lead a joint task force aimed at stopping a stolen weapons ring” (via Deadline).
How The Fed Five Story Shapes Gibbs’ NCIS Arc
Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS: OriginsCBS
Currently, it’s uncertain how NCIS: Origins season 2 will incorporate Fed Five into its current narrative. As it is, the show is already balancing a lot of plots, and tackling such an important part of Gibbs’ life might disrupt its own storytelling. It also raises questions about why Austin Stowell’s younger agent was chosen to be part of the elite team, when more veteran members of Franks’ NIS squad like Lala Dominguez are available.
Being a part of Fed Five, however, helped solidify Gibbs’ place in NCIS. Because of the team’s success, their achievement undoubtedly played a big part in his transfer to Navy Yard and take over of MCRT in NCIS. Granted that it eventually came back to haunt them years after, leading to the murder of McLane, the stint undoubtedly put Gibbs’ name in the agency’s map.
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