‘NCIS: Sydney’ Premieres as #1 New Show of Season
The international expansion of CBS‘ hit franchise brought in viewers on November 14.
NCIS: Sydney debuted at 8/7c as the #1 show of the night, averaging 5.48 million viewers. It also had the largest premiere audience of any new show this season and was the #1 live-streamed entertainment program on Paramount+. CBS also posted its largest Tuesday audience of the season with 2.92m viewers, up +34 percent from last week and up +21 percent from its Tuesday average.
The series premiere did include new boss Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann) quoting one of Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) rules, and showrunner Morgan O’Neill was vague when TV Insider asked if that means they have history. “Interestingly, there’s a backstory that we’re going to be delving into as the show progresses about how Mackey came to be NCIS, and it’s a rough road, let me tell you that, and it involves her formal career as a Marine Corps chopper pilot and how that didn’t end up great,” he said.
“As we’ll see, there was a certain former NCIS agent who reached out to her at her lowest moment and dragged her back into the organization. And that agent may or may not be Jethro Gibbs, but certainly strap in and we’ll find out,” he teased.
The theme song is a remix of the mothership’s. “We got a bunch of cutting-edge Australian musicians to remix that tune, give it a slightly more contemporary, slightly more Australian feel,” O’Neill shared. “But yeah, it’s definitely a nod to the original theme because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Joining Mackey in the task force on NCIS: Sydney is Special Agent DeShawn Jackson (Sean Sager) and AFP’s JD Dempsey (Todd Lasance), Evie Cooper (Tuuli Narkle), Bluebird “Blue” Gleeson (Mavournee Hazel), and Dr. Roy Penrose (William McInnes).
NCIS: Sydney, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS
