Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
NCIS Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
23 Episodes 2003 - 2004
Episode 1
Yankee White
Tue, Sep 23, 200343 mins
Aboard Air Force One a Naval officer dies after eating with the POTUS. After an unscheduled stop in Wichita, agents of the FBI, NCIS, and Secret Service all compete to control the investigation. The NCIS agents win, and they and the body return to Washington aboard a presidential 747. Then, in Georgetown, a Marine Corps officer also dies in the same way. Abby discovers both the cause of the deaths and the manner of the delivery of the lethal substance. Gibbs flies with Kate, a Secret Service agent, to the West Coast, then rides the alternate Air Force One back to Washington. During the return flight Gibbs thwarts an attempt to assassinate the POTUS. Kate resigns from the Secret Service, and Gibbs gives Kate an implied job offer.
Episode 2
Hung Out to Dry
Tue, Sep 30, 200343 mins
During a night training jump a Marine dies when his main chute fails to open, and he fails to pull his reserve chute. Kate, formerly of the Secret Service, joins the NCIS gang; they investigate, and they soon find evidence of sabotage of the defective chute. The investigators run into a wall of silence. The victim was on painkillers for a recent injury, so his reaction time was slow, but that made no difference anyway. To get help with a legal matter, Gibbs calls in Lt. Bud Roberts from the headquarters of the JAG Corps of the US Navy. The gang identify not only the murderer and his method but also a drug connection. Gibbs and Tony take a ride, and Tony unintentionally makes a jump.
Episode 3
Seadog
Tue, Oct 7, 200341 mins
A boat carrying alone the body of a commander in the US Navy runs aground on a beach in northern Virginia; two other bodies wash ashore not far away. The NCIS gang investigate all three deaths; with the collaboration of DEA Special Agent Kent Fuller and FBI Special Agent T.C. Fornell, they first consider drug involvement, pursuing several leads and using some inventive questioning techniques. The two civilian bodies bore waist packs stuffed with counterfeit bills, which Kate traces through a friend in another federal agency; the origin of the phony money leads the NCIS to a terrorist connection. They deduce an imminent attack by the terrorists, and Gibbs leads his bunch to intervene in the commission and forestall it.
Episode 4
The Immortals
Tue, Oct 14, 200342 mins
In the Caribbean Sea, near the Bahama Islands, a tourist swimmer finds the submerged body of a seaman who has disappeared from a destroyer of the US Navy. The victim wore dress whites and had an officer's sword (honed to a razor-sharp edge). Chained to the body were two weights of 25 pounds (11.36 kilos) each. Gibbs and company investigate aboard the ship and elsewhere. Abby tells them about a document indicating the seaman's participated in an MMPORG and she offers some insight about it. The team eventually identify aboard the ship a petty officer who is connected with the victim and the death; they also save the skipper from an explosion.
Episode 5
The Curse
Tue, Oct 28, 200344 mins
In a woods in Maryland a hunter stumbles across an aircraft external cargo pod (from an F-14 Tomcat) containing the mummified body of a Naval officer and other objects; nine years earlier the victim disappeared from USS Dwight Eisenhower (CVN-69), aboard which carrier he had served as the disbursing officer, and from which ship 1.2 million dollars also disappeared. The NCIS team investigate aboard the ship and elsewhere; they find not only the sloppy work and faulty conclusions on the previous investigation but also the real thieves and killers, thereby providing emotional and financial benefits to both the widow and their daughter. Gibbs starts to have trouble with his eyes.
Episode 6
High Seas
Tue, Nov 4, 200343 mins
A chef finds a naked sailor inside a freezer in the galley at a restaurant in Rota, Spain, during a port visit by USS Enterprise (CVN-65); shortly afterward at sea another petty officer freaks out on the flight deck. Each of them tests positive for meth, even though each of them recently passed their random drug tests; soon one of them dies in the sickbay, apparently by homicide. The resident NCIS special agent aboard the ship calls for Gibbs and his team; they all investigate, and, with the help of Abby and Ducky, back at the Navy Yard in Washington, they discover both the answers and the unlawful system not only providing the illicit drug to innocent users but also rigging the test results.
Episode 7
Sub Rosa
Tue, Nov 18, 200344 mins
Inside a drum of hydrofluoric acid at an industrial site aboard the Naval Station, Norfolk, Virginia, two civilian workers find the decomposing body of a man, apparently a submariner, who died after a blunt instrument fractured his skull. Gibbs and his team go to Norfolk to investigate; attention concentrates on one particular submarine and a theft of identity; Gibbs and Kate continue to USS Philadelphia (SSN-690), which got underway the day before. The commanding officer and his chief of the boat give limited and begrudging cooperation due to the nature of the exercise in progress. The other members ashore help greatly; Gibbs nails a terrorist aboard and saves the crew from mass death.
Episode 8
Minimum Security
Tue, Nov 25, 200344 mins
By accident two bikers meet a dead driver who destroys their ride; the late driver, a petty officer and a naturalized citizen of the USA, was of Egyptian descent. His death resulted from massive internal bleeding due to an intestinal blockage caused by emeralds. He had just arrived from duty as an interpreter at Camp Delta at the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba; his luggage contained five unmailed letters to others from a woman special agent of the NCIS at Gitmo. Gibbs, Kate, and Tony go to Gitmo while Abby checks out perfumes in Washington. The gang sort things out, identify a son-in-law of Bin Laden, and prevent a murder.
Episode 9
Marine Down
Tue, Dec 16, 200344 mins
Officials in Washington receive news of the deaths of two Marine majors during a highly classified operation in an undisclosed foreign country; two sealed caskets arrive in the USA, and two widows mourn. On the day of one funeral the widow receives a jarring telephone call; a third Marine officer also receives an incredible call. Gibbs and the team investigate, and they encounter more puzzles, challenges, difficulties, and inconsistencies. Ducky deduces the frightful way by which one victim died; the other casket contains something other than a human body. Gibbs, Kate, and Tony go to Colombia, where they catch the bad guy, then they make a joyful return to Washington.
Episode 10
Left for Dead
Tue, Jan 6, 200445 mins
A young lady emerges from a shallow makeshift grave in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC; although amnesic she says that there's no time, that there's a bomb aboard a Naval vessel, and that people will die. A passing driver aids her and calls 911; the Metro PD responds, then calls the NCIS. Gibbs and his team investigate. Kate befriends the victim and takes her into her pad, and she slowly recovers a few memories. Gibbs finds a key, then Abby figures it out, then Gibbs and Tony find a body. The ship in question proves to be ashore and inside a building. The team learn the name of the victim, then she begins to recover more memories than she reveals. Eventually she confronts the person responsible for her treatment, and she drops a surprise on him.
Episode 11
Eye Spy
Tue, Jan 13, 200444 mins
A Naval officer, a decorated SEAL diver, dies of a stab wound after swimming while testing a classified handheld sonar device along a beach at the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek in Norfolk; the device disappears. An anonymous caller promptly reports the murder. Gibbs and the gang investigate; they find someone who watched the killing from afar. That allows them to find another person on the beach, one who tells them about someone with the killer. Gibbs persuades the director of the CIA to cooperate, and Abby gets help from a friend at the NASA. The team correctly put the pieces together, so they find both the killer and the missing device.
Episode 12
My Other Left Foot
Tue, Feb 3, 200444 mins
In Clarksburg, West Virginia, a dumpster diver finds a severed right leg, apparently from a Marine; Gibbs and company investigate; Ducky estimates that the leg was still attached to a live person not more than 24 hours earlier. The leg contains a titanium replacement ankle, traced to a Marine, aged 22, who, according to a death certificate, died two years previously; that person was said to have died of a heart attack, yet no autopsy took place, and the nearest relative caused the body to be cremated. Abby makes major contributions to the solution of the crime. The team figure it out, and they get a confession. Tony expresses interest in tattoos.
Episode 13
One Shot, One Kill
Tue, Feb 10, 200443 mins
A Marine recruiter in Washington, DC, while sitting in his office and talking with two prospects, takes a single round to the chest from a high-power rifle, falls forward, and dies; Gibbs and the gang investigate. While one suspect is in custody, a second Marine recruiter dies the same way in Maryland; FBI agents precipitate a departmental turf war, but the NCIS team outfox the Hoovers. The Gibbs group expect another murder, so they set a trap, and it works; the shooter squeezes off a third round, and then Tony and several FBI agents capture him. Kate, while impersonating a commissioned officer, has trouble with her gourd cover.
Episode 14
The Good Samaritan
Tue, Feb 17, 200444 mins
Along a lonely road at night near the Naval Air Station, Oceana, Virginia, near Norfolk and Virginia Beach, a Naval officer (a lieutenant commander in the Dental Corps) dies of a single shot to his back, apparently in an execution-style murder; Gibbs and the gang investigate, with the insistent cooperation of the woman sheriff of the county. Soon a civilian employee of NAS Oceana dies under identical circumstances two counties away, then a lieutenant, a Naval aviator from NAS Oceana, dies nearby also under identical circumstances plus a twist. Two suspects have airtight alibis, but a records clerk explains the identical angles, then the team catch their quarry.
Episode 15
Enigma
Tue, Feb 24, 200445 mins
During an ambush in Iraq a Marine colonel disappeared, and his driver died, while moving $2M of Saddam Hussein's cash; the money likewise disappeared; the colonel has since re-entered the US under an assumed name; the FBI now places him on its most-wanted list. Gibbs had previously served under the same colonel while on active duty in the Corps; he now tries to find him before the FBI does. The team check out an old cabin of the colonel, where they find the body of a young man, and where Gibbs finds a bomb, which soon explodes; then the pursuits begin. Fornell gets a warrant for the arrest of Gibbs, but Gibbs breaks the case, stays free, and gets help for the colonel.
Episode 16
Bête Noire
Tue, Mar 2, 200445 mins
An agent of a foreign power enters the autopsy room via a clandestine and unconventional method; he then takes captive Ducky, Gerald, and, later, Kate. The intruder demands every bit of the evidence, including the blood, pertaining to the body of a terrorist who arrived late the previous night, and whom Gibbs had shot while capturing him at the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek in Norfolk; the intruder seeks to prevent the USA from discovering that his sponsor, using an infectious virus, contaminated the terrorist, who had begun working among the population aboard the base. The intruder eventually asks to see Gibbs, so Gibbs confronts him in the autopsy room; Gibbs and others regain control. Abby finally overcomes a fear.
Episode 17
The Truth Is Out There
Tue, Mar 16, 200444 mins
The body of a petty officer falls from the ceiling of a men's washroom at a nightclub in the basement of a warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC; Gibbs and company investigate; Ducky says that someone dressed the victim after he died. The sailor, a storekeeper from NAS Pax River, along with four buddies from the same station, had gone to the nightclub for a wild night. The team puzzle over latex, safety glass, talcum powder, and $40K in cash. Basic footwork and inquisitive thinking eventually produce the connection between a prank and an inheritance. Four musketeers confess, and Kate and Tony seek Chinese food.
Episode 18
UnSEALeD
Tue, Apr 6, 200444 mins
A prisoner, who was a SEAL and a petty officer in the Navy, escapes from Fort Leavenworth while serving a sentence for having killed his wife and a cable guy; the Army CID investigates the escape, and the Naval CIS seeks to determine where he may go next. Gibbs posts Kate temporarily in the home of the parents of the late wife, which parents have custody of the young son of the convict; while there Kate loses something. The team investigate whether the escapee truly committed the murders; they reexamine all the old evidence at the trial plus some new stuff. They find the real killer, and Gibbs posts Kate to a different home. McGee tells Gibbs that Kate and Tony have a question for him.
Episode 19
Dead Man Talking
Tue, Apr 27, 200445 mins
A security guard finds the disemboweled body of an NCIS special agent, Chris Pacci, in an elevator; the Metro PD calls the NCIS to take the lead. Gibbs and the gang investigate; Gibbs feels much personal responsibility, for he had deferred giving the agent some help he had sought with a cold case (one involving a theft of more than $12M from the Navy). Ducky says that the killer first shot the victim in the neck and then cut him open inside the elevator. Co-workers show irritability due to the involvement and the relationships, but they pick up where Chris left off; Tony uses a new technique for personal surveillance, and he gets a surprise.
Episode 20
Missing
Tue, May 4, 200445 mins
A Marine gunnery sergeant, Atlas, has failed to report for duty after a weekend; he's a technician in explosive-ordnance disposal (EOD), one of a handful of people with a critical qualification, so his unauthorized absence (UA) brings in the NCIS. Gibbs and company track him, and they find a newspaper reporter with some helpful information; meanwhile Atlas is shackled to a wall inside a small concrete-block room with a decomposing human body. Abby learns that three other Marines also have disappeared from EOD units in the past eight years, and she finds a pattern; Tony encounters Atlas. Abby, Gibbs, and Kate connect the dots, then Gibbs and Kate find Tony and Atlas.
Episode 21
Split Decision
Tue, May 11, 200445 mins
A group of teenage boys at play find the body of a Marine impaled on the stump of an old fencepost; Gibbs and company investigate; however, Ducky says that the hole through the torso had resulted from something else, and that one or more other people placed the body onto the post. The victim was a staff sergeant and an armorer at the Marine Base at Quantico. The gang determines that the penetrating wound resulted from a warhead from a shoulder-launched assault weapon; they look into the black market for illicit high-power weapons from military sources; they meet an ATF special agent, who takes part in an unusual way. Gibbs and the others solve both the murder and the diversion of the weapons.
Episode 22
A Weak Link
Tue, May 18, 200444 mins
A SEAL lieutenant dies while he and his team rappel during an exercise to prepare for a classified operation; he falls to his death due to a failure of a fitting in his rappelling gear; Gibbs and company investigate; a special agent of the CIA expresses intense interest. The phony part is an inferior fitting, intended to fail, which someone substituted. A number of factors do not add up right. However, Ducky provides ice cream, and Kate does something she's never before done. Meanwhile Abby and McGee have some ups and downs, and they hack into a server and enter a secret e-mail account. Gibbs and the team eventually put the pieces together and reach a conclusion.
Episode 23
Reveille
Tue, May 25, 200444 mins
Gibbs continues to concentrate on the unknown terrorist who shot him and escaped from the morgue; he does so with extreme determination to the extent of obsession and frustration. Meanwhile the anonymous bad guy makes a plan, buys some hardware, and gathers several friends; then he seeks to intercept the PotUS and the PM of Israel. The bad guy also arranges a new running friend for Tony, and he allows Kate to spot him while he rides a bike; Tony pursues the runner, and Kate tries to pursue the bike, but that works out poorly, for she winds up on a farm in the boondocks. McGee finds a face and a name, then details and explanations. Gibbs finally meets and talks with his quarry.
