Harmons combine to give Gibbs his prequel

After living with his dad’s show for more than half his life, Sean Harmon had
an epiphany: Hey, this really needs a prequel.
Now it has one: “NCIS: Origins” (shown here) airs its intense opener from 9-11 p.m. Oct. 14 on CBS, then settles in at 10 p.m. Mondays.
The idea came, Harmon recalled, as “a lightning bolt moment, when we were shooting episode 400 of ‘NCIS.’”
That one – which aired in November of 2020 – flashed aback to when Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a young widower, joining what would become the NCIS. Mark Harmon was in his 18th season as Gibbs and Sean (his son) had his seventh episode as young Gibbs. He was playing, he said, “a guy who’s got something broken inside, … at risk of going down a much darker path.”
So he began pushing for a prequel series, but didn’t want to act in it.
Austin Stowell (shown here) did want the role. “I wanted it to be me,” he said. “I thought it should be me. This is a character who is dealing with tremendous loss, who’s kind of broken. I’ve been there.”
During the screen test, Stowell said, he got key advice: “Mark came up to me and said two words that I’ll remember forever. He just said, ‘Trust yourself.’”
Stowell, 39, got the role and said he’s spent the last eight months obsessing on it. He wears contacts to match Harmon’s eyes and studies the cadences of his voice. “It’s in my head constantly.”
It’s a voice that Sean Harmon, 36, knows well. When “NCIS” started, he was 14 and his brother was 11.His dad was looking for a change.
“I was traveling and doing movies and stuff and gone a lot,” Mark Harmon, now 73, recalled. “We had a young family.” So he took “NCIS,” which let him be home with his wife (Pam Dawber) and their sons.
At the time, Sean was following another family tradition: His grandfather (Tom Harmon) was the Heisman Trophy-winning running back at Michigan; his father (Mark) was the starting quarterback for two winning seasons at UCLA. Sean also played football, but (at just under six-foot) saw no future in a world that now wants tall quarterbacks.
Instead, he captured the physical side as a stuntman on seven films and stunt coordinator on 10 more. Now he’s an “NCIS: Origins” producer, alongside his dad (who retired from “NCIS,” but narrates “Origins”) and others.
The show mixes moments of humor – especially from Bobby Moynihan and Caleb Foote – and intensity. It gives us early views of Gibbs and his mentor, Mike Franks, played by Kyle Schmid, who’s optimistic: “I think we’re going to take procedurals on CBS to a whole new level,” Franks said.
Such shows are sort of a CBS specialty. Just before “Origins” opens, “NCIS,” now Gibbs-less, will start its 22nd season.