NCIS is one of the biggest crime procedural franchises in the world, and for as long as I’ve been a fan, I always assumed the flagship series was the favorite. That was up until I saw the question posed online, and learned that opinions on which is the best spinoff vary wildly from person to person.
As we wait for NCIS, NCIS: Origins, and the brand new NCIS: New York spinoff to come to the 2026 TV schedule, Reddit is in a debate on which show is the best. This includes the original series it was a spinoff of, JAG, and it feels like everyone has a different take:
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NOLA is my absolute favorite but Origins is coming for that spot tbh – RedditLeaveMeAlone2o
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NCIS origins, NCIS , Fin. The other spinoffs are lame – NotAUserNamm
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I loved the NCIS Hawaii and I was really surprised it didn’t get at least one more season. I haven’t seen many of the others, I saw the early original NCIS so I’d say that was better then Hawaii but Hawaii was better than original NCIS from after I stopped watching purely because original NCIS had lost my attention – Wild-fleurs
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NCIS, NCIS LA, Never saw the others. I think I saw a couple epsidoes of NOLA and it wasn’t for me. – WhatTheJessJedi
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I feel like original NCIS needs to be broken into groups of seasons. Must see in the beginning, not so much now. – lalamarie513
Here I thought everyone was in agreement that the original NCIS was superior to all others! Speaking personally, I was never able to latch on to any of the spinoffs in the way I was the the original, and maintain it’s doing things as great as ever with its latest season finale. Now I’m finding out everyone may not be on the edge of their seat waiting to see who was shot between McGee’s son and Torres?
Also, for what it’s worth, one the commenters above noted the absence of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, conceding that they think of it as a standalone series. But then the lone streaming series of the bunch didn’t seem to land at the top of anyone’s picks.
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The unique thing about this thread is not that people have different favorites. Everyone has their favorite superhero movies or the order they prefer to watch Star Wars. What’s interesting to me is that there doesn’t appear to be a general consensus, at least in the thread, of which series is the best.
Perhaps the fact that NCIS has so many fans of different shows is evidence that it’s somewhat surpassed the need to be accepted as a crime procedural series. It feels like one of those series that’ll always be around, which is a good thing in the midst of this shift in how people consume television on a weekly basis. Whether you watch on CBS weekly or decide to throw in on with a Paramount+ subscription after being away for years, all these shows will be there, and still be relatively easy to follow.
As mentioned, a bunch of NCIS shows are headed back to CBS in the fall and are available to stream over on Paramount+. As long as you like seeing bad guys get arrested, you’ll be right at home watching all of them and have a blast trying to figure out the killer.