At the end of NCIS Season 2, Sasha Alexander’s Caitlin Todd was killed by the terrorist Ari Haswari, and the following season, Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David initially came to Washington DC simply to stop her half-brother, but ended up taking Caitlin’s spot on the CBS show’s main team. De Pablo starred on NCIS for eight seasons, then departed at the beginning of Season 11. Looking back on the actress’ exit, one CBS executive described this status quo change on NCIS as a “ripple in the universe,” and one of the show’s creatives admitted he never believed this would happen… until it did.
The “ripple” comment came from former CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler, who was among the many individuals surprised when De Pablo walked away from NCIS. As for why the actress decided to leave, executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson explained in THR’s NCIS oral history to commemorate the show’s 20th anniversary that De Pablo had reached a point where she felt it was time for a change. As Floyd recalled:
With Cote, I think she had gotten to a place where she wanted to move on. She did eight years on the show, and I had a conversation with her about a year or two before she left, and she said to me, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this forever, and at some point, I think I might leave.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Cote, please, come on. It’s such a successful show. What are you going to do? You should ride this horse all the way to the gate.’ And she said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ So I didn’t believe it.
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Fellow executive producer Mark Horowitz acknowledged that during Cote de Pablo “wasn’t necessarily as popular” at the beginning of her NCIS tenure compared to when she left, which is certainly accurate. Oftentimes new main characters coming into a show can have trouble fitting in among the existing regulars, but as the years passed, Ziva became a fan-favorite, with viewers especially enjoying her will-they-won’t-they relationship with Michael Weatherly’s Anthony DiNozzo.
Back in 2016, De Pablo said she “chose not to stay” on NCIS because of “political things and the scripts not being good enough,” as well as feeling that her character “was not being treated with the respect that she deserved.” However, three years later, the actress stated that her previous comments were “taken out of context at a certain point,” though she wasn’t willing to elaborate on the specific circumstances concerning her departure. As Charles Floyd Johnson understood the situation, De Pablo had simply reached a point where she’d taken her NCIS journey as far as she wanted to, even though Johnson and plenty of other people wanted her to stick around.
Ultimately, Cote de Pablo appeared in NCIS Season 11’s first two episodes to wrap up Ziva’s arc, and just a few episodes later, Emily Wickersham was cast to play Ellie Bishop, Ziva’s replacement on the team. Johnson had the following to say about her coming aboard:
Emily Wickersham (Eleanor Bishop) came in, and hers wasn’t an easy transition from Cote de Pablo because Cote was such a strong character. Audiences liked [Cote], but eventually, Emily won out. But I remember it was a little bumpy with her, where you’d get mail, and people would go, ‘She’s no Cote de Pablo.’ Well, we wrote her very differently for that reason.
Although Ziva David was in initially thought to have been killed offscreen in Season 13, she reemerged in the Season 16 finale to reunite with Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, then recurred during Season 17. When we last saw her, she was heading to Paris to reunite with Tony and their daughter, Tali. As for Emily Wickersham, she left NCIS at the end of Season 18, with Ellie Bishop leaving the agency to go on a deep-cover mission. The good news for fans of both these characters are still alive, so the door is open for them potentially return again someday.
Catch up on NCIS’ first 20 seasons with a Paramount+ subscription and stay tuned for updates on Season 21’s progress. For all your queries regarding the rest of this year’s small screen programming, read through the 2023 TV schedule.