Last year’s NCIS episode paying tribute to the late David McCallum, who played Donald “Ducky” Mallard in the procedural’s first 20 seasons, ended on quite the surprising note. Michael Weatherly, who had exited NCIS in the Season 13 finale, reprised Tony DiNozzo in a surprise cameo appearance to share screen time with former costars Brian Dietzen (who co-wrote the episode) and Sean Murray. As it turns out, the new spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which is premiering on the 2025 TV schedule, played a big part in why Weatherly appeared at the end of "The Stories We Leave Behind.”
I had the pleasure of recently interviewing both Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, who starred as Ziva David on NCIS for eight seasons (plus guest and recurring appearances in Seasons 16 and 17) about NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which is pairing its title characters back together onscreen for the first time in over a decade. At the end of our conversation, I mentioned to Weatherly how much I enjoyed seeing him return to NCIS back in early 2024, and he told me this:
