Ain’t it Cool (J)?: NCIS to open East Coast Operations…

NCIS, itself a spin-off from the naval series JAG – has produced a lot of variations over the years. There has been NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawai’i, NCIS: Sydney and prequel NCIS: Origins… all distinct successes and also NCIS: Cyber (which only ran for one season and a back-door pilot for NCIS: Red (which would have had a mobile team) that never made it to full series. There was also a NCIS: Tony & Ziva spin-off that ran last year and which will see Michael Weatherly return to the mothership next season.

The next new chapter will see NCIS: Los Angeles‘ stalwart L L Cool J and his character Sam Hanna move from the West Coast to the east Coast as NCIS: New York debuts this October.

And now we have a trailer which gives us an idea of what to expect. Sam Hanna makes a return trip to his hometown of New York City, specifically to their NYC field office and ends up helping lead a new team as they are “…tasked with high-stakes missions to defend one of the most vital cities and ports in the world.”

Scott Caan is the other major name attached, playing Nick Schaeffer. Caan previously starred in the likes of the Hawaii Five-O reboot and Alert: Missing Persons Unit. Interestingly, the Hawaii Five-0 reboot technically exists in the same universe as the NCIS franchise and crossed over several times with Caan’s Danny appearing alongside NCIS guest-stars.  It’s likely this will have to be conveniently ignored and it’s not the first time the franchise has had to play ‘Face Off’!

Other regulars will include Jennifer Beals as their boss Robyn Wells, Jacqueline Byers (Dark Winds) as special agent Addy Ross, Shane Harper (Power Book IV: Force) as special agent Wyatt Sellers, and Devin Druid (13 Reasons Why) as tech whiz Sean Sullivan… (because every NCIS team needs a quirky tech-whiz!

R. Scott Gemmill (who was also a showrunner on NCIS: Los Angeles and oversaw The Pitt) wrote  the NCIS: New York pilot and Kingdom‘s Byron Balasco serves as showrunner.

There was some additional surprise in the fact that if there was going to be another NCIS-linked show, fans expected it to be a second season of NCIS: Tony and Ziva which was cancelled after one season in December. When asked by industry site Deadline about the decision earlier this year, CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach simply replied:  “We really wanted to bring the Sam Hanna character back…”

Check out the trailer below…