Although Leroy Jethro Gibbs got to see how his life could have played out differently on the landmark 200th episode of NCIS, he decided he wouldn't have it any other way.
NCIS celebrates 200 episodes with an emotional "what if?" story
After being fired at while enjoying his morning cup of coffee at a diner, Gibbs (Mark Harmon) was led by the ghosts of Mike Franks (Muse Watson), Riley McCallister (Michael O'Neill) and Gibbs' wife Shannon (Darby Stanchfield) to some of the defining moments of Gibbs' life and the series. What if Gibbs had stopped a sniper from killing agent Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander)? What if Gibbs hadn't killed the man who murdered his family? And what if Gibbs hadn't been an NCIS agent at all?
In the end, truth was better than fiction for Gibbs. We chatted with executive producer Gary Glasberg about creating this one-of-a-kind hour...
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ABC's thriller The River debuted to much weaker numbers than several of the network's other drama premieres earlier this season (and a couple of them got canceled). Still, it fared better for the network than any program in its time slot since the autumn ending of Dancing with the Stars.
The season's top show, NCIS, marked its 200th show with another big audience, while also trumping Fox's Glee in the coveted adults-18-to-49 demographic. The CBS ratings stalwart didn't set a series record, however.
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What if?
That's the basic question at the heart of NCIS' 200th episode. The landmark hour (airing Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS) takes Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) to his favorite diner for his usual morning cup of coffee. But he gets a whole lot more: Out of the blue, a hooded gunman approaches Gibbs, pulls his weapon and fires.
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Cue a string of mind-bending flashbacks that ask the question: What if Gibbs had taken a different path?
"There's almost an It's a Wonderful Life quality to it," executive producer Gary Glasberg says. "Gibbs is given an opportunity in a millisecond to see what the world would have been like if key moments in NCIS history and lore had unfolded differently. We've taken some of those moments and we let people see them unfold differently."
Indeed, Michael Weatherly, who plays Agent Tony DiNozzo, says...
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If the notion of getting "Lost in the Amazon" and finding yourself in a weekly horror movie has any appeal, then by all means set your compass for ABC's The River, the most exciting thing to happen to TV's midseason since, well, Monday's premiere of Smash on NBC. If Smash is a show-stopper, The River is a terrifying heart-stopper, a cleverly cinematic supernatural adventure that takes us on a wild ride into an exotic heart of darkness. (It opens with back-to-back episodes Tuesday at 9/8c, and the second hour is even scarier than the first.)
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