As the lead in a huge series, Mark Harmon got to play special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the “NCIS” franchise mothership series as something of a mystery man, at least to the point of having to exploit everything it was that gave his baby blues that rushed expression. As the actor has portrayed him over 22 seasons, Gibbs has never stopped being the strong, silent type, but by the end of that term I didn’t feel like I was anymore, given the countless flashbacks to the trauma he experienced Much backstory would remain, leading the lawman into a seemingly permanent state of solitary existence. When a prequel series for Gibbs was announced earlier this year, a series fan might be wondering: Is there any aspect of his longing for his dead wife and daughter that has remained even remotely unexplained?

But as it turns out, “NCIS: Origins” does have a raison d’être that doesn’t depend exclusively on quick corpse-of-the-week cases or Shannon and Kelly redux. (But rest assured, there’s plenty of both.) Watching the first few episodes makes you wonder if the show’s existence isn’t just about milking Jethro for more tortured looks. It’s about correcting a mistake in the original series, or at least a creative decision that was viewed as a mistake by much of the fan base: killing off a beloved supporting character, Mike Franks, as a shocking plot point in Season 8. As the show’s producers presumably did Realizing that might have been a misstep, it was too late to bring him back – although God knows they tried, since character actor Muse Watson was allowed to keep popping up as network television’s favorite recurring ghost (or… sure, imaginary conscience). ). With “Origins,” the franchise not only resurrects Franks, but also gives Gibbs a chance to be part of a buddy drama. It looks like the new show will be more secondary than first thought… or at least, with any luck, it will be.

But as fans already know ahead of the October 13 premiere, none of the cast members from the ongoing original series are returning to play their 1991 selves. (Sorry, de-aging fans…at least you have the upcoming Tom Hanks movie to look forward to.) Gibbs is played by – no, not Harmon’s son Sean Harmon, who played his father’s character on several “NCIS” films. embodied flashback episodes. and is executive produced here – albeit by Austin Stowell, a relative unknown to most viewers. Stowell bears a resemblance to the older (or younger) Harmon that is, shall we say, inaccurate. Kyle Schmid, who replaces Watson as 1991’s Mike Franks, is closer to the man we remember on screen, barring two or three decades of accumulated crustiness. Will you buy these two as younger, livelier versions of the dynamic duo that never quite reached their peak in the 2000s and 2010s? It remains to be seen how many episodes it will take for the fandom’s collective brain to do a full reboot, but you can expect “NCIS: Origins” to have a long run to try to make that happen.

When we first see Gibbs again at the start of the two-part premiere “Enter Sandman,” his wife and daughter have already been killed, which is a huge relief – no one really needed a full dramatization of that setup. He’s so rattled by the still-recent tragedy that he failed a psychological evaluation, we’re repeatedly told, but Franks either has undue confidence in his skills as a sniper-turned-investigator, or just sees it as such a kind of rehab to give him the NCIS gig. (Actually, make that NIS… the logos on the hats and jackets in the new series stay true to the fact that the Naval Investigative Service didn’t get its “C” until 1992. It also jokingly alludes to how before “NCIS” Als When the series went to series in 2003, few civilians had any idea what the hell either acronym meant.) They all work at Camp Pendleton in California under the direction of Special Agent Cliff Walker (Patrick Fischler, who some of us remember will always be remembered as the guy who is literally scared to death behind a restaurant in “Mulholland Drive”. For the first time in a first “NCIS” series, neither Walker nor anyone else in charge is initially portrayed as an ambiguous, possibly controversial figure – at least not yet not; Walker just seems a little nervous and preoccupied.

No nerves for Mike Franks – a cocky, mustachioed figure of indeterminate southern origins who flaunts his machismo and political incorrectness on his suspenders. The Franks of NCIS: Origins may be the least tortured special agents in the history of the franchise, or at least since the early days of DiNozzio. It will certainly be easy to exaggerate the character’s recklessness towards polite norms, but viewers might enjoy the scene in an early episode in which a suspect is caught on video discussing his belief in the fearsome Mothman legend – and the editors of the Series – being questioned It continues with Franks, who leads his colleagues to loud, mocking laughter. Meanwhile, in the locker room, female team members discuss whether Franks is a misogynist who intentionally passed them over for promotions. He may be, but the character is so endearing that if he is, he’s probably due for some clarification before the end of the season. As played by Schmid, this Franks looks and sounds a bit like an increasingly coarse Ted Lasso. It’s a pleasing balancing act to see him play at this early stage.

Watching Stowell land in the role of Gibbs presents a bigger hurdle. Even his opening music asks fans to reconsider the hero they thought they knew: He drives to the Camp Pendleton base and leaves Pearl Jam arise. Is this just supposed to establish a bit of historical flair, or is it supposed to really blow our minds that Gibbs was once an Eddie Vedder guy? (Franks, for his part, is introduced with a bit of a circa-1991 Hank Jr., rather on-the-nose look.) Stowell appears to be a beefier, taller, more chiseled Gibbs than the one we’ve come to know in middle age, and indeed the women In the office he meets his first arrival at headquarters with quick but unmistakably lustful doppelgangers. If anything, Stowell is more like a Brian Dietzen with a bigger neck than Harmon – and he occasionally acts like him, having to play the guy whose mouth sometimes hangs open as he’s initiated into the world of gruesome corpses and crime. solve. Stowell isn’t much taller than Harmon in real life, but he seems to tower over all the other actors here, a beefy athlete thrust into the role of a preternaturally intuitive agent. It’s so inharmonious in many ways that “Origins” almost feels more like a reboot than a prequel.

But of course the assumption is that Gibbs was a different guy in 1991. Even though he has just been through the trauma, he is still a naive in the forest and an experienced sniper. So maybe over time we’ll get more used to him or to the producers’ idea of ​​him. There are moments where you can feel Stowell leaning from his naturally booming voice towards Harmon’s quieter voice – which has been important since Harmon does provide narration for the series, usually at the beginning and end of the episodes, and express thoughts about a largely lonely life. (The original actor also appears very briefly at the beginning of the pilot, presumably in the present, chopping wood.) It’s hard to say what direction the series will take the character – whether that will reveal how he fulfills the essential loneliness Harmon played, either more as Franks’ love interest, or a bit as if he had both.

The first four episodes available for review by critics focus plot-wise on the franchise’s usual procedural cases, the elaborate details of which are as quickly forgotten as they are repressed as fans use them as a delivery system for the characters they tell, accept love. Epidode 4 involves protecting a soldier’s young daughter overseas, which inevitably brings up Gibbs’ guilt over being on duty when his family met their end. The reality is inevitably that the series will tell – soon, probably in this first season – how Gibbs traveled to Mexico to secretly kill the man responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter, an incident that has long been known in “NCIS” lore circa 1991. In fact, Gibbs’ father Jackson Gibbs (a gentle Ralph Waite in the original series, an angry Robert Taylor in this one) only shows up to warn his son about going to Mexico to go and do that. He might as well tell him not to build an indoor boat.

Gibbs has a potential love interest on this new show, Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino), who accuses Franks of being “in heat” in an unfortunate exchange. The foreshadowing of Harmon’s narrative suggests that she may be in trouble for hitching her wagon to Gibbs – as does the fact that her character never made it to NCIS proper. Molino is an appealing actor, so perhaps Stowell will get some of the love scenes that Harmon herself has always shied away from before they become something else that Gibbs will have to feel guilty about. It would be nice if they didn’t kill her – if the main character only felt grief because she turned away sexually too soon, and not because someone was murdered again.

But it’s clear who Gibbs’ true love interest will be on Origins: Mike Franks. This couldn’t happen to a nicer pair of wrestlers.

“NCIS: Origins” premieres October 14th at 9pm ET/PT on CBS.