“Origins’ Showrunners Break Down Premiere”

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the two-part premiere of NCIS: Origins on CBS.

The origin story of Leroy Jethro Gibbs has finally begun: CBS premiered its highly anticipated Veteran prequel on Monday NCIS Writer-producers Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North and CBS Studios. And as promised, Mark Harmon returned to both narrate and appear by the fire and journal about his life.

Here, Monreal and North split the two-part premiere, which follows a young Gibbs (Bridge of Spies' Austin Stowell) as he begins his career as a newly minted special agent in the fledgling NIS office at Camp Pendleton.

DEADLINE How much does the average NCIS viewer know about Leroy Gibbs?

GINA LUCITA MONREAL I think it varies, but our hardcore fans know a lot. We're trying to find a balance between those hardcore fans and hopefully new fans who don't know anything. That's the line we're taking.

DEADLINE Do you know that he failed the psychological evaluation?

DAVID J. NORTH No, we just made that up. We make this shit up.

DEADLINE This is what a writer should do. Have you met his father?

NORTH You met his dad on the OG show. His father was played by the wonderful Ralph Waite, who died during the run of this series. So we have Robert Taylor playing the younger version of him.

DEADLINE: Did you shoot Pendleton?

NORTH We didn't do it. We talked about it once. We went down there. Gina and I took our writing team with us and accompanied the director on the two-hour premiere to ensure it was as realistic as possible. In keeping with Pendleton, we shot in San Pedro.

DEADLINE Why is it only NIS?

MONREAL Before it became NCIS, it was called NIS. In 1992 there was a restructuring during which the name was changed. It really helps us, even if we just say that this is a different time and a different place. We will play this restructuring as part of our show.

DEADLINE Why is Mike Franks (played by Kyle Schmid) considered a legend and how did he get here? He obviously doesn't fit the classic mold of these investigators.

MONREAL That's a good question that we'll answer.

NORTH We know him as a gifted mentor. We know he was a bit of a rule breaker. I don't know how many episodes Frank was played by Muse Watson in NCIS, but it seemed like there was a lot of untapped potential there. It was exciting for Gina and I because we felt like we could dig a little deeper into this character that the hardcore fan base knows and find out what would have brought this guy to life in 1991. The younger version in our show is very different than the older pensioner in the original. Frank is blunt, he tells it like it is. He's a little bit like Archie Bunker, but he's someone who has a lot of empathy for the people around him, even if he doesn't always show it.

MONREAL I would call him complex because although he does some misogynistic things, he also has another side to him.

DEADLINE So we see Mark Harmon's Leroy Gibbs writing a diary in the premiere! Did we know he wrote a diary?

MONREAL Well, we knew he had brought a diary with him to Alaska.

NORTH While writing Mark's final episode of NCIS, Gibbs travels to Alaska and when he gets there, he's looking for someone. He decides that he has found peace there. When we wrote this episode, we didn't really know what Gibbs would take with him knowing he was never coming back. One of the things was a diary because he will be alone. This worked out very well for us here at Origins.

MONREAL David actually wrote the farewell episode for Gibbs in the original NCIS and did a wonderful job ending that story. It's really fun to see how he can continue that story with our new show.

DEADLINE When we hear from Gibbs' father in the premiere, he tells his son, “You're not cut out for this job.” What did he mean by that?

NORTH Gibbs joined the Marines at 18 and was a sniper his entire life. He defended his country by hunting the enemy. He was a murderer. Unfortunately, this is how Jackson sees his son. He didn't see him as someone who had the patience to carry out these investigations. I think every father-son relationship is complex and fathers don't always see everything that happens to their son. This is a really hard moment.

MONREAL Jackson is also a soldier. We established in the original series that he flew planes in the army and in war. I think it's really ingrained in this family that she's in the military. So the fact that he sees Gibbs making this change almost unannounced is troubling for Jackson.

DEADLINE When Gibbs said the phrase “old habits,” he literally sounded like Mark Harmon. You didn't have Mark's voiceover done, did you?

MONREAL Austin says so. He did a lot of research into the way Mark played this character and he really adopted a lot of his mannerisms and speech patterns. I think his research and commitment to this role is really evident.

DEADLINE: Do you want to try to match the exact tone of NCIS or do you want it to be a little more serious?

NORTH We'll definitely find the humor, but the tone of this show is darker for the most part. It's edgier. We're dealing with some stories that we might not have experienced in the original NCIS, but we find that even in the darkest moments of loss and grief, humor always bubbles to the surface.

DEADLINE Will there be a serialized aspect to this?

NORTH It's mostly serialized. We have cases every week, but the show really goes deep into the characters, so it's a very serialized show.

DEADLINE Is Mark particularly valuable about this figure or is he giving it a wide berth?

NORTH Both. It's very close to his heart, but it's a really interesting thing. He's Gibbs and obviously Mark has put so much of himself into Gibbs over the years. But he really trusts me and Gina. He wants us to realize our vision.

DEADLINE How would you describe NCIS fans? Will they keep you busy or do you think they'll give you a break?

MONREAL Oh, they won't give us a break, and I don't want them to either. That's what makes them so wonderful is because they're so dedicated and they don't want us to do anything wrong, and we certainly don't want us to do anything wrong. We love and respect our fans and want to do them justice. We're really excited for you to see it.

DEADLINE What differences will we see in the way this team investigates cases versus how the modern team works?

NORTH Forensics takes a long time. Even fingerprinting can take up to six months. So it's more of a seedy, dirty, conventional, old-fashioned kind of investigation, which is wonderful from a writer's perspective. It can be challenging in that you don't have the crutches to just say, “Oh, okay, we're going to do the fingerprint analysis and find our man.” It makes us look back at the characters and our agents and use their skills to solve these cases.

DEADLINE: Will we see Mark sitting by the fireplace and writing in his diary again? Or are you putting him somewhere else?

NORTH Everything is possible. We don't want to give away too much about what will happen, and a lot still needs to be clarified. Our show focuses on 1991 and these characters, this rich tapestry that we have with these characters, but certainly anything is possible.

DEADLINE Young Gibbs is a handsome man. Can you imagine him considering a romance, or is that out of the question for a while because he's still so bruised?

NORTH I think you said it. This is a human being and he has suffered many losses, but romance is certainly not out of the question.