Tony and Ziva spinoff continues an interesting NCIS trend

NCIS has always been pro spinoff. NCIS is, after all, a spinoff of JAG that has spawned a handful of similarly iconic spinoffs. The franchise has continued to do what it does best in this regard, but there is an interesting pattern that's surfaced in the past several months.

NCIS has decided to look backward, rather than forward. While NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: Hawaii were instances of the franchise expanding, and applying the winning formula of the original to new settings and characters, the two latest spinoff announcements are predicated on characters that fans already know well.

NCIS is repurposing its old characters

There's NCIS: Origins, which will be centered around a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the 1990s. Mark Harmon won't be playing his iconic character (no bizarre, MCU-style de-aging here), but he will be in the mix as an executive producer and narrator.

Then there's the untitled spinoff that was recently announced, and will be focused on beloved NCIS veterans Ziva (Cote de Pablo) and Anthony 'Tony' DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly). These two will reunite for the first time in a decade, and will be given ten episodes to solve a string of cases abroad.

Related: Sadly, yes, Ducky Mallard did die on NCIS

The working title for the spinoff is NCIS: Europe, according to Deadline, but nothing official has been confirmed. What has been confirmed, at least in terms of network thinking, is that NCIS has built up such a strong well of characters that bringing back veterans constitutes an exciting new spinoff.

NCIS used to launch standalone spinoffs

We're not here to suggest that the approach is wrong, or that we aren't thrilled by the possibility of seeing Ziva and Tony reunited onscreen, but NCIS has to be careful not to overplay its hand in this regard.

The two spinoff shows that have repurposed flagship NCIS characters sound great, but we wouldn't want to see the franchise overplay their hand, and give us a spinoff for, say, Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly). No disrespect to Shepard, but there's a limited number of characters who could make the whole spinoff conceit make sense.

We hope to see more standalone spinoffs like NCIS: Sydney in the future. That being said, we will absolutely be watching Ziva and Tony's adventures. C'mon, it's Ziva and Tony!