NCIS: Sydney Review: A Trip Down Under Freshens Up 43-Season-Old Franchise

After 43 total seasons and a nearly 1,000 (!) combined episodes, does the NCIS franchise have anything new to offer…?

Created by an Australian (actor-turned-writer/producer Morgan O’Neill)… (originally just) for Australians… and starring/guest-starring maaany Australians, NCIS: Sydney (premiering Tuesday, Nov. 14 on CBS) suggests that a trip to the land Down Under shakes things up enough to warrant another offshoot.

The premise for NCIS: Sydney, as established in the first episode (I’ve seen the first four of eight): “As international tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific,” U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a “multi-national task force, to keep naval crimes in check in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.”

Olivia Swann (Legends of Tomorrow) and Todd Lasance (Spartacus: War of the Damned) lead the cast as, respectively, NCIS Special Agent Michelle Mackey and her 2IC AFP counterpart, Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey. Rounding out the merged team are Sean Sagar (Fate: The Winx Saga) as NCIS Special Agent DeShawn Jackson, Tuuli Narkle (Bad Behaviour) as AFP liaison officer Constable Evie Cooper, Mavournee Hazel (Neighbours) as AFP forensic scientist Bluebird “Blue” Gleeson, and William McInnes (Blue Heelers) as AFP forensic pathologist Dr. Roy Penrose.

Of the above actors, all are Australian save for Swann and Sagar, both of whom are English.

Now, you don’t need me to tell you that the Sydney backdrop in and of itself makes TV’s fifth NCIS series look special, if not oftentimes downright picturesque, shooting on location as it does at Sydney Harbor (including at the HMAS Kuttabul naval base), Bondi Beach, the Malabar Ocean Pool, Kings Cross and the like. Most everywhere the camera faces, this gives the procedural a vibe like no NCIS before it. (But if pressed to draw a comparison, I’d say it most evokes NCIS: New Orleans, between the team’s makeshift HQ and the setting’s highly specific local flavor.)

The cases similarly make the most of the NCIS franchise’s first international setting, with “murder by exotic snake” and an apparent shark attack figuring into two of the kills.

NCIS: Sydney also, of course, sounds different. And while I luhrve me the Aussie accent, you will probably want to watch with closed-captioning on, since at least one of the series regulars and the occasional guest star can be a bit indecipherable at times.

But as different as NCIS: Sydney may look and sound, the character types will be (a bit too?) familiar to franchise aficionados.

You have, in Swann’s Mackey, the veddy serious team leader with a limited tolerance for hijinks. There is also, of course, the quirky! forensic scientist, the M.E. who’s a font of wisdom, and the early hints of Will They/Won’t They between two team members.

On the flip side, the “forcibly merged team” aspect is new for the long-running franchise, and tees up entertaining instances of culture clash. (Australia has very different rules about LEOs and open carry firearms, for example. They play, “Scissors, Paper, Rock.” Oh, and car steering wheels are on the other side! Wild.) There’s also a recurring adversary that offers an interesting wrinkle, given who he works for….

Of the cast, Swann makes for a solid (and tall) team leader, though it takes at least one episode too many to shine any light on the past trauma that defines Mackey/has her “shields” up, while Lasance has great fun with Dempsey’s comparatively laid-back persona. Narkle, I want to say, is the big standout as Evie — winningly sassy and arguably the “most Australian” of the bunch — while Sagar was a runner-up until his character started acting a little too free-spirited in later episodes. Hazel is hampered early on by Blue’s characterization (though that starts to improve), and I look forward to learning more about McInnes’ M.E.

All told, I was digging the very first episodes (and getting a crash course on Aussie lingo), and I might have gone “B+” if Episode 4 didn’t land very flat for me. So, a “B” it is, for now.

NCIS: Sydney premieres Stateside on CBS on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 8/7c, and will also be available live and on demand that night for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers. (Paramount+ Essential subscribers can stream each episode the day after it airs.) The series globally premieres on Paramount+ Australia on Friday, Nov. 10, with additional Paramount+ international markets to be announced at a later date.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: If you’ve never pulled the trigger on an actual (long) trip to Australia, it’s a g‘day to be an NCIS fan, with the arrival of NCIS: Sydney