‘NCIS’: Mark Harmon Reveals What Gibbs Is Doing in Alaska Now

The newest episode of NCIS: Partners & Probies, the podcast hosted by Brian Dietzen and Diona Reasonover, featured Mark Harmon, who starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs for 19 seasons in NCIS and now narrates the prequel every week (and executive produces both NCIS and Origins). Also guesting was former NCIS special agent and series technical advisor Leon Carroll Jr. (Director Leon Vance, played by Rocky Carroll, was named after him). Unsurprisingly, when it came time for fan questions, what Gibbs is currently up to in Alaska came up — as well as the name of Gibbs’ canine companion.

“Dog?” Harmon suggested on the podcast. “Yeah, I don’t know the name. I just know he’s got a friend sometimes. Maybe the dog goes back in the evening somewhere else or I think he’d be all in for letting that happen. I don’t know.”

Harmon exited NCIS near the beginning of Season 19, at which point Gibbs stayed in Alaska. Harmon has since appeared onscreen twice on NCIS: Origins, with Gibbs still in Alaska. In the crossover between the two shows, it was revealed that Gibbs is not alone — because he now has a dog spending, based on what Harmon said on Partners & Probies, some time with him.

Origins executive producer David J. North told TV Insider in November 2025 that bringing in that dog came about because both he and Harmon are “dog obsessed.” North adds, “[Executive producer] Gina [Lucita Monreal] and I talked and we thought it’d be a cool thing and we knew Mark would enjoy it, and sort of the notion of where did that dog come from and out in the middle of nowhere and we liked the idea of Gibbs not being alone as we continue to learn more about his story.”

For Harmon, Gibbs is “very comfortable on his own” and settled in Alaska, the star told TV Insider ahead of that crossover. “He probably has more challenges being around lots of people than he does being alone, but he’s not alone anymore, right? So that part was intriguing. This is an idea David and Gina had, and it was like, oh, that’s cool. I’m trying to help them.”

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He continued, “It’s why the voiceover thing was something that they pitched from the beginning in the idea of this show, and it keeps me physically involved. It’s something I do like every 10 days, I go in and do however many loops we have or shows we have to do. And that narrative has been fun to try to get behind and understand things that were just during the course of the show presented weekly that you just took as being true and move forward. But now maybe you get a chance now to understand a little more or to find a little more, or even show how it was developed because you’re a number of years advanced to what we’ve already shown audiences. And that’s been an interesting process for me from the beginning, sitting in that room and watching actors come through the door to play people that you knew later in their lives. So it’s all been new, and that’s pretty interesting on a show that’s 20 years old.”

In general, when it comes to NCIS: Origins, he takes a backseat, Harmon said on the NCIS: Partners & Probies podcast. “I wait to be asked. I’m not gonna dive in there and say anything unless you ask me. And you’d be surprised how many people don’t ask, right? And that’s OK, too. It’s a different way of doing it. Not the way I did it, but that doesn’t make it right. Part of this is being surrounded by talented people and allowing them to do their job individually and trusting that,” he explained, praising North, who, before Origins, worked on NCIS.

In fact, Harmon noted how North became a writer on the mothership. “He was smart enough at the time to say, ‘I’m seeing all these people around me get fired and there are no complete scripts.’ And so in his free time, which he had very little of, he wrote a script,” he shared, with Carroll naming the exact one, “Bikini Wax,” Season 2 Episode 18.

“For us on set, that was the first full episode we’d seen at one time since the pilot,” Harmon added, a fact that Dietzen didn’t realize, though he did know it was North’s first.

What do you think Gibbs is up to in Alaska? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS

NCIS: Origins, Season 2 Finale, Tuesday, May 5, 9/8c, CBS