Michael Weatherly’s departure from ‘NCIS’ after 13 seasons was seen by one executive producer as potentially fatal for the long-running CBS procedural.
NCIS has been operational for twenty years. However, there have been moments when it looked as though the program could end, especially after beloved characters like Abby Sciuto and Leroy Jethro Gibbs left. An NCIS insider recently disclosed that the exit of another important actor seemed like a death knell for the long-running series.
Michael Weatherly left ‘NCIS’ in 2016
On NCIS, Michael Weatherly portrayed Tony DiNozzo. Senior NCIS agent DiNozzo was a member of the group under Gibbs’s (Mark Harmon) direction. The character debuted in a JAG episode that doubled as an NCIS backdoor pilot and persisted in showing up until season 13. In the end, DiNozzo quit the squad to take care of his daughter with agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo).
In reality, Weatherly had decided it was time to move on from the CBS show. He also wanted to spend more time with his family, which included several young children with his wife Bojana Jankovic.
“The kids are very excited to have me around, mostly because I’m wrapped around their little fingers,” he told People at the time. “I’m just a sucker and I’m trying very hard to be authority dad.”
“As a lot of working parents know, when you’re not around a lot and then you’re with your kids, it’s very hard to just come in and be the strict one because then you’re just an *sshole,” he added. “But you don’t want to be too soft.”
‘NCIS’ executive producer didn’t think the show could go on without DiNozzo
Weatherly had good reasons for wanting to move on from NCIS. But those running the show feared what his exit might mean for the series.
“When Michael Weatherly left, I thought, ‘We’re done. How could we go on?’” JAG director and NCIS executive producer Mark Horowitz told The Hollywood Reporter for the magazine’s oral history of NCIS.
But Horowitz needn’t have worried. The show brought in That ‘70s Show star Wilmer Valderrama to play a new character named Nick Torres. He fit right in.
“And yet Wilmer Valderrama comes in and creates his own persona, and he’s got his own thing,” Horowitz said.
“I knew America loved DiNozzo … When a series loses a major character like that, there’s always a hole,” former CBS president Glenn Geller said. “But the writers always managed to really find a way to not plug the hole, but to massage the characters and the relationships so that you were being introduced to new ones, and you still got to love the ones that are there.”
Michael Weatherly teased a return to ‘NCIS’
It’s been seven years since Weatherly left NCIS behind. He later went on to star in CBS’s Bull, but that show ended in 2022. But could the actor be contemplating stepping back into DiNozzo’s shoes? A recent social media update has NCIS fans hoping.
“I think things are beginning to go forward. Things that will astonish greatly. In a July 2023 post on X, the previous Twitter platform, the actor stated, “Stay tuned.”
After making that remark, several speculated that Weatherly was getting ready to announce his return to the upcoming 21st season of NCIS. According to TV Insider, he also made a suggestion about a potential comeback in a January 2023 post on X. However, there hasn’t been any formal word yet regarding Weatherly’s return to the program.