Back in the early 2000s, the popular CBS naval-based legal drama “JAG” was spun off into the similarly-themed “NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” thankfully shortened to just “NCIS.” It took a few seasons to find its audience, but CBS stuck with “NCIS” — and that confidence paid off, because the show finally cracked the top five in Season 6 and has stayed there since. That’s even despite the fact that “NCIS” cast members thought one thing would kill the series, but didn’t. 

Like any popular police procedural of the last 30 years, “NCIS” would go on to spawn multiple spin-offs. Inspired by “CSI,” most of those spin-offs have been focused on a particular location — “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” “NCIS: Hawai’i,” and even going international with “NCIS: Sydney.” But the “NCIS” franchise has gotten a little more creative in recent years, including prequel series “NCIS: Origins” — which debuted in October 2024 — and the upcoming “NCIS: Tony & Ziva,” centered on the titular couple. 

Of course, as it goes with TV franchises like this, not all spin-offs have been hits. And unlike “Law & Order,” whose “Special Victims Unit” surpassed the anchor show in popularity and longevity, the OG “NCIS” remains the best of its bunch. But in this one-of-a-kind ranking of the best seasons of the entire “NCIS” family of shows — culled from a mix of critical consensus, fan lists, and the opinions of the “TheShockNews” staff — a few spin-offs’ seasons did find themselves worthy of inclusion. 

“NCIS: New Orleans” was the second spin-off in the franchise, spawned from a two-part episode during Season 11 of “NCIS.” It would last seven seasons, which might seem paltry compared to “NCIS” itself — as well as “NCIS: Los Angeles,” which got double the amount — but it’s an admirable run for a show that is so polarizing for fans. “New Orleans” centered around Special Agent Pride (Scott Bakula) as he leads a team whose jurisdiction are the waters of the southern United States. The Season 4 to Season 6 range seems to be something of a sweet spot for a lot of TV dramas, and to that end, Season 5 of “New Orleans” is not only the best one for that show but one of the best in the entire “NCIS” franchise. 

It starts with Pride still on the mend from a near-fatal shooting, and the squad being in flux after the departure of Special Agent Percy (Shalita Grant). The multi-episode arc that follows the investigation of the Apollyon spy network — and realizing Apollyon had a mole within the NCIS ranks — is a major highlight. Fans also noted that it was the last season of “New Orleans” that still felt like an ensemble piece, before the subsequent two seasons went a little too heavy on feeling like “NCIS: Agent Pride.” 

Another season that begins with the series lead ailing from a bullet taken at the end of the previous one, “NCIS” Season 13 starts with Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) recovering in the hospital — which introduces Dr. Taft, the character everyone forgets Jon Cryer played on “NCIS,” who went on to appear in two more episodes. And speaking of guest stars, none other than Michelle Obama appears in a Season 13 episode as herself while she was still the First Lady. 

As for the regular “NCIS” ensemble, Season 13 was one of those transitional seasons that saw huge exits — it would be the last for Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) as a main cast member — and the introduction of a few newcomers to keep the balance. A few characters also got fleshed out a bit, with both “Ducky” Mallard (David McCallum) and Abby Scuito (Pauley Perrette) getting storylines devoted to them and their respective siblings. Seasons like this are never the strongest of any series, but “NCIS” handled this particular transition period better than most — even if the era it transitioned to has yet to match the quality of the first 13 seasons. 

“NCIS: Los Angeles” is the longest-running of the “NCIS” spin-offs thus far, with fans having mixed feelings about the show ending with Season 14. “NCIS: Hawai’i” got the axe after only three seasons, so unless “NCIS: Sydney,” “NCIS: Origins,” or one of the several still-forthcoming series does shockingly well, it seems as though “Los Angeles” will safely secure its place as the second longest-running “NCIS” show — even besting “Jag” at 10 seasons.

There are any number of reasons why “Los Angeles” clicked with fans. Some of it might have to do with the recognizability of leads Chris O’Donnell, LL Cool J, and longtime character actor Linda Hunt. But overall, it could just be that the show was good, as evidenced by two of its seasons declaring themselves worthy of mention alongside other stellar “NCIS” runs. 

Season 3 of “Los Angeles” saw the show really hitting its stride, with Steve Marsi of TV Fanatic putting it perfectly when he wrote, “‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ started off as a show I watched because it was on right after ‘NCIS’ and it was always enjoyable. Nowadays, however, it’s starting to approach that must-watch caliber.” As for what actually transpires during the season, it’s a lot — investigations go international several times over, cyber espionage looms large, and there’s a fun crossover with fellow CBS cop show “Hawai’i Five-0.” 

Though Season 13 of “NCIS” was definitely pivotal, it was a period that was first set into motion via various major events that occurred in Season 11. Namely, it would be Ziva David’s (Coté de Pablo) last season as a regular, and she wouldn’t be seen again until she showed up as a guest star in Season 16. On the plus side, Season 11 also welcomed Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham), arguably the best character introduced since the initial group. She brought a lot of charm to a show that tries to not always take itself too seriously but sometimes struggles in delivering on that goal.

Standout episodes of Season 11 included the time-hopping heartbreaker “Past, Present, and Future,” the allegiance-testing “Devil’s Triad,” and the powerful season finale, “Honor Thy Father,” which saw Gibbs return home to mourn the passing of his father, played by Ralph Waite. Waite made a huge impact on the series — and in helping to develop Gibbs as a character — despite only appearing in eight episodes. His last episode of “NCIS,” Season 11’s “Better Angels,” would also be one of his final screen credits prior to his 2014 passing. 

Following Season 11, “NCIS” Season 12 continued to dole out the big moments that would lead up to the series needing to take a step back and reassess its future for Season 13 and beyond. Plot-wise, Season 12 saw the stakes progressively raised over the course of its episodes, until things culminated with a push against a terrorist group that had aims on attacking the entire world. 

It can be argued that going so big and so global was a little on the ambitious side for “NCIS” and the narrower scope that it excels at working within — a suggestion reinforced by Season 13 needing to hit the reset button. But while Season 12 was actually unfolding, it was a thrill to be along for the ride. Even if the show had shot itself in the foot by subsequently struggling to top the heights of Season 12, it was worth it to get such a great season of television. Unfortunately, the worst storyline in “NCIS” Season 12 kept the season merely great when it could have been excellent: the show didn’t know what to do with Tony after Ziva’s Season 11 departure, leading to some really out-of-character creative decisions for him.

Season 1 of “NCIS” obviously had the task of introducing all of the main characters, but then the next couple of seasons were off and running on the action. It was with Season 4 that the show slowed down a bit and decided to shift the focus back toward character development instead of just case after case — and that was definitely a smart move. Every member of the main cast got at least one notable story arc in Season 4, each one giving the audience a better understanding of those characters and strengthening their position in the ensemble going forward.

While nobody actually thought that Gibbs was going to stay retired when he went down that path this season, it still gave the show an excuse to give Tony his biggest spotlight up to that point, cementing his position as one of the show’s best-loved characters. Season 4 was also the first time that an episode of “NCIS” was the top show in the ratings for its week, proving that audiences were really beginning to come aboard during this era of the show and liking what they saw. 

While some felt that Season 4 leaned a little too heavily into personal territory, it ended up being a good decision for the show’s future. Many new fans jumped in during this time and were given the opportunity to learn a lot about these characters they were just meeting for the first time. 

This will be the last “NCIS” spin-off to appear on this list before the rest is just a ranking of original “NCIS” seasons. But it says a lot about the quality of Season 7 of “NCIS: Los Angeles” that it not only cracked the top 10, but is ranked higher than several very strong seasons of original flavor “NCIS.” As previously mentioned, the “NCIS” franchise is at its best when multiple characters are given equal time in the spotlight — a problem that “NCIS: New Orleans” struggled with by focusing too much on Pride. Season 7 of “Los Angeles” exemplified that by insisting that the show had not one main lead, but three, with each getting plenty of time to both shine and struggle. 

“Los Angeles” also tended to be a bit more brutal and unflinching in its depiction of violence than any other “NCIS” show, and while that was sometimes to its detriment, Season 7 struck the perfect balance in that regard. Episodes were action-packed but never in a way that felt forced, and it only got uncomfortable when it made creative sense to do so. The cast was also at its best in this season, both individually and in terms of their chemistry together. 

While “NCIS” always remained the king of its franchise, Season 7 of “Los Angeles” is the closest any of the spin-offs got to dethroning it. Had the subsequent seasons retained this quality, it might have actually gotten there.

The first seasons of most shows, particularly dramas, are often among their weakest. It makes sense, since that’s the season when all of the world-building has to happen, and time needs to be spent introducing numerous characters and their relationships to one another. But spin-offs have a lot of that work already done for them, which was the case with “NCIS”: having “JAG” to build upon, Season 1 of “NCIS” avoided most of that debut season slog and came out swinging.

You can’t discuss the first two seasons of “NCIS” without bringing up Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander), who was part of the main cast going back to the backdoor pilot episodes of “JAG,” but only stayed on board as a regular through the end of Season 2. She was such an integral part of the ensemble that it seemed hard to imagine the show going on without her — and while it obviously did, it’s impossible not to speculate whether the show would have been even better if she stuck around for the long haul. As for Season 1 itself, it didn’t feel the need to slowly ramp up the stakes as other shows do, already covering cases as ambitious as an attempted presidential assassination right in the first batch of episodes. 

If you’re one of the many people who didn’t come aboard “NCIS” until Season 4 or 5, do yourself a favor and at least watch Season 1 and Season 3 (which we’ll get to later). If you skip any of the first few, make it Season 2. 

Season 9 of “NCIS” had an explosive finale that affected pretty much every character and left them to pick up the pieces at the start of Season 10. That’s always fertile creative ground on which to build a season of dramatic television, and the show didn’t waste it. Season 10 is definitely one of the darkest seasons of “NCIS,” not only in the most obvious way — deaths and grave injuries — but also for more complex reasons that see characters making questionable professional and/or moral decisions. Even the most upstanding characters up to this point veered well into flawed territory over the course of Season 10.

Despite a lame mid-season cliffhanger that set up a bang but paid off with a whimper, Season 10 really put Tony and Ziva through the ringer — Ziva even more so after the heartbreaking events of “Shabbot Shalom,” one of the show’s best episodes ever. We’ve said a lot so far about how much “NCIS” struggled to make up for losing Ziva as a character once she was gone, and Season 10 includes a lot of great examples of why she was so integral to the show — it’s definitely not a coincidence that the best era of “NCIS” is the one that also contains Ziva’s meatiest storylines. 

Season 8 of “NCIS” took some really big swings, such as the ambitious story arc about the Port-to-Port serial killer that stretched across five episodes. Not that “NCIS” isn’t largely a serial show, but being a primetime network television series does mean that its smaller arcs are often solved within an episode or two so that viewers don’t feel lost if they miss a few. But by 2010, when Season 8 began, cable shows like “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” and “Sons of Anarchy” were starting to lure viewers with their deeper, more ongoing stories — and the networks were feeling the pressure. 

As such, “NCIS” Season 8 felt it had something to prove — not just for itself, but for network television as a whole. Some of the best art is born out of a sense of competition, and “NCIS” really delivered here in that regard. Arcs started to get bigger, characters made decisions that impacted more than just the events of the next episode or two, and flashbacks to events that preceded the events of Season 1 were revealed. 

And while his Emmy-winning guest spots on fellow CBS series “The Big Bang Theory” were getting all the attention at the time, Bob Newhart also made a memorable appearance in a Season 8 episode of “NCIS” as the long-retired NCIS Chief Medical Examiner, whose stint in the role directly preceded Ducky’s.

It says a lot about how good Season 5 of “NCIS” is that it’s ranked so highly, despite being truncated by the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike. The renewed expansion of the characters’ backstories that first got underway in Season 4 continued here, particularly when it came to Gibbs. Season 5 also saw a noticeable uptick in references to the events of previous seasons, making it seem as though there was more confidence behind the scenes that the show had finally found a big enough audience that it didn’t feel required to treat every season like it could be a viewer’s first.

Interestingly, you won’t find very much Season 5 representation in most lists of the best episodes of “NCIS.” But that shouldn’t suggest that it’s a bad season. Instead, it’s indicative of how cohesive of a season it is that there aren’t as many of those huge standout episodes — episodes that are great when taken on their own but tend to overpower the surrounding entries. That’s not to say that Season 5 doesn’t have some special ones, most notably “Chimera” — the 100th episode of the show — and “Internal Affairs,” the latter of which serves as the climax to the thrilling battle with arms dealer La Grenouille (Armand Assante) that started in Season 4. 

There’s something about Season 7 of a long-running show that always feels a little extra special. If you believe in numerology, the number seven is, of course, associated with luck and good fortune — which may be all the explanation you need for the trend. But it’s also because it’s the point at which a show has managed to overcome the doldrums that often come around Seasons 4 and 5 of many series, and has proven that it has what it takes creatively to stick around for the long haul. It might not be the absolute best season of “NCIS,” but Season 7 certainly comes close. 

The formidable Raynosa Drug Cartel looms large over the season, keeping the team — and audiences — on their toes. The NCIS crew also prove that they are actual top-tier detectives rather than just users of fancy investigation gadgetry, when a power outage forces them to kick it old school in the memorable episode “Power Down.” And then there’s Ziva finally joining the team full-time, assistant NCIS director (soon to be director) Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) making his debut, and the aforementioned drug cartel’s leader being revealed to have deep personal ties to Gibbs that will have ramifications that stretch beyond the season. Season 7 of “NCIS” is some of the best television of the 2000s — and yes, that includes those fancy prestige shows on cable.  

The best three “NCIS” seasons are seasons 7 through 9. If it were a film, Season 9 would be an example of a movie trilogy that ended with the best installment. It’s one of those powerhouse seasons that most shows only wish they could have. One of the things that makes it one of the best seasons of “NCIS” is that there is essentially a single big bad for the whole stretch — tech investor and CEO Harper Dearing (Richard Schiff), who is radicalized into terrorism after his son is murdered. It gave the season a focus that no other season of “NCIS” had before or has had since, not to mention delivering one of the best TV villains of the last 20 years. 

Another thing that makes Season 9 special is the five-episode stint from Jamie Lee Curtis as the fascinating Dr. Ryan, who pushes professional buttons and also has a short but memorable romantic entanglement with Gibbs. Curtis hadn’t done much television at that point, at least not in the preceding 20 years, so it was significant to see her not only appear on “NCIS” but to stick around for more than just a one-off appearance. The fact that Curtis did a lot more TV after this — in particular, her stints on “New Girl” and “Scream Queens,” plus her incredible Emmy-winning performance on “The Bear” — is all the more reason to love her time on “NCIS.” 

After “NCIS” suffered a major sophomore slump with Season 2, Season 3 not only helped the show bounce back and prove it wasn’t a one-year wonder but also gave it what is still its best season to date. It’s as if the writers knew they had to win back audiences going into this season, so they started strong with a premiere so potent that it needed to be a two-parter. It then finished just as powerfully as it started, with yet another explosive double-header. How many seasons of TV have you seen that not only the confidence to be bookended by two-part episodes but also the skill to pull that off?

On top of that, Season 3 introduced Ziva to both audiences and Tony, laying the groundwork for one of the best-handled relationship slow burns in recent memory. On the more tragic side, we got to see how the loss of his wife and daughter turned Gibbs into the grizzled, often standoffish agent and man that he is, thanks to a coma-induced flashback. It was one of the first major revelations shown of Gibbs’ pre-Season 1 life, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps Season 3 was a little too good, since “NCIS” has yet to top it, which is just about its only real flaw.