The biggest NCIS: Origins inconsistency so far that puts it far from the original series

NCIS: Origins kicked off in October 2024 as the sixth entry in the NCIS franchise, joining Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaiʻi, Sydney, and the upcoming Tony & Ziva spin-off. But what makes Origins different is that it’s a prequel, set in 1991, following a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs just as he begins his career at the Naval Investigative Service—what would later become NCIS.

It showcases a younger Gibbs, played by Austin Stowell, and narrated by Mark Harmon, the same actor who played the older version of Gibbs for 19 seasons on the original show.

The story focuses on Gibbs joining the Camp Pendleton office under Mike Franks (played here by Kyle Schmid), dealing with the trauma of losing his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly, and slowly becoming the kind of investigator fans met years later in Washington. The team is full of new faces, including Lala Dominguez, Vera Strickland, and others who round out the early NIS office dynamic.

While the tone and setup feel loyal to long-time fans, it hasn’t taken long for viewers to start pointing out inconsistencies, especially one major detail about the house his family lived in, which doesn’t line up with the original show’s established history of Gibbs' personal loss.

Disclaimer: The article reflects the author's opinion and not Sportskeeda as a whole.

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This one NCIS: Origins detail completely breaks series continuity

Still from NCIS: Origins (Image via CBS)

The biggest inconsistency in NCIS: Origins so far is how it handles the death of Shannon and Kelly Gibbs, specifically where they were living when they were killed, and how that clashes with what’s already been shown or said across multiple episodes of the original NCIS.

In NCIS: Origins, the show places Gibbs at Camp Pendleton, California, when he joins the NIS in 1991, with his wife and daughter living nearby. This setup leads to Shannon witnessing a murder connected to Pedro Hernandez, a drug dealer operating in the area, which ultimately results in her and Kelly being killed.

This part lines up with what Jenny Shepard tells Ducky in season 3’s Hiatus. But the problem lies that in the original series, multiple episodes show or suggest that Shannon and Kelly were living in Washington, D.C., at the time of their deaths.

In season 7’s Flesh and Blood, Gibbs returns to his former house in D.C., speaks with a realtor, and visits the backyard birdbath with Kelly’s handprint still there.

In another episode, he digs up a time capsule that Kelly buried in a flower bed outside what is clearly presented as their D.C. home. And Gibbs has mentioned more than once that he hasn’t slept in the master bedroom of that house since Shannon died—implying that was their shared home.

Now, NCIS: Origins is showing Gibbs working in California while Shannon and Kelly live on or near base housing at Pendleton. That directly conflicts with what’s been previously shown.

If they were based in California at the time of their deaths, how does the birdbath in D.C. exist? Why would Kelly bury anything in a flower bed in D.C.? Why would Gibbs say he never returned to the master bedroom of a house they supposedly never lived in together?

Still from NCIS: Origins (Image via CBS)

The show also makes it look like Gibbs’s father, Jackson, doesn’t know what really happened to Pedro Hernandez—yet in the original series, it's made clear that Gibbs tracked Hernandez to Mexico and killed him long before he ever became a field agent. While it’s plausible that Gibbs never told his father the truth, the timeline of events is starting to stretch pretty thin.

These are major continuity gaps that can not be overlooked as tiny background mistakes. And while fans can accept some changes for the sake of storytelling, this one shakes up the entire foundation of Gibbs’ backstory in a way that longtime viewers immediately noticed.

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Watch NCIS: Origins on CBS.