If you’re having a difficult time believing that Glasgow’s Willy Wonka Experience and Ryan Gosling singing “I’m Just Ken” at the Academy Awards happened – not only in the same year – but also this year, then you might not remember when Netflix unceremoniously pulled NCIS from its lineup of content back in the spring. It’s been a dark few months since the first eleven seasons of the iconic crime drama backed off the streamer, but there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel – well, kind of. As we step into a new year, Netflix is rolling out its lineup for January, dotting it with titles like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, the hit AMC series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and more, with the first five seasons of NCIS joining the fun.
For now, it’s unclear if the addition of these earlier seasons will mean the excommunicating of others, but – should the streamer be simply adding and not subtracting – this would mean that, beginning on January 23, fans can get their binge on with NCIS seasons 1-5 and 12-17. Sure, there’s a pretty big gap in there between the fifth and twelfth seasons, but who can watch that much TV anyway? And the first five seasons will really build your foundational knowledge about the show, so making the time jump won’t seem as wild as – say -building up from Season 12, as is the current option.
From where it stands in real time, NCIS is well into its 22nd season. Which, in human years, is that weird spot where you are old enough to join the military and scrounge up some coins for a pitcher at the bar, but can’t legally rent a car from any dealership of your liking. Despite having been around long enough to vote in two different Presidential elections, NCIS is still gaining plenty of praise from fans and critics alike, as it continues to lean heavily into the intrigue and drama that made it popular in the first place.
Spin-Off Central
As would be the case with any hit series (we’re looking at you, Yellowstone), when a network sees a fan-favorite, money-making opportunity, they run with it. When it comes to NCIS, this means the spawning of a whopping five off-shoots, with a sixth one on the way. While most of them have since bowed out, the original flavor is still running strong alongside NCIS: Sydney, the recently released NCIS: Origins, and the upcoming NCIS: Tony and Ziva.
Keep things classic and go back to where it all began when the first five seasons of NCIS arrive on Netflix on January 23.