‘NCIS: Sydney’ Showrunner Reveals Major Difference Between US and Australian Teams

After 20 years, the NCIS franchise is finally taking things international with the upcoming spinoff. With the series obviously taking place in Australia, it will be a little different in terms of how cases are handled and what the teams do, as opposed to how they do it in the U.S. The drama will pair up a team of U.S. NCIS agents with the Australian Federal Police to form a multi-national task force. While it is an NCIS series, it won’t be your typical one.

“The first and most obvious difference is that while NCIS exists in Australia in real life, they don’t have the same kind of jurisdictional authority as they would in the U.S. because they’re in a foreign country,” showrunner Morgan O’Neill tells TVLine. “So when NCIS works in Australia, they work in conjunction with our highest law enforcement agencies – in particular the Australian Federal Police, which are our equivalent of the FBI. From the perspective of our show, what’s going to be very, very different is that it’s effectively the first ‘blended family’ where NCIS has to form a team with the Australian Federal Police and operate in conjunction with them.”

While select NCIS episodes across the franchise have taken place outside the U.S., NCIS: Sydney is the first series to actually fully take place outside the country. From the looks of Sydney, it’s going to take some time to get used to for both the teams and the fans. But that is what will make the show exciting. “It’s Australians and Americans working not always in concert, but certainly together, and working through cultural differences, working through the clashes that would naturally exist when you bring two disparate organizations together,” O’Neill shared. “But ultimately, they find that there is this core DNA that they share between the two organizations that actually bonds them into a team really quickly, but with unexpected results.”

It seems there will be a lot to look forward to, and fans will be learning a lot as well about how they operate Down Under. Even though NCIS and NCIS: Hawai’i won’t be airing new episodes on CBS’ fall 2023 schedule, the NCIS franchise is still alive and well thanks to NCIS: Sydney. Fans will want to tune in on Tuesday, Nov. 10, for the premiere as it takes over its predecessor’s former time slot. NCIS: Sydney will premiere on Paramount+ Australia on Friday, Nov. 10.