NCIS creator details abrupt exit from series after sharing he had 'done enough'

NCIS landed on screens in 2003 as the brainchild of Donald P. Bellisario and Don McGill as a two-episode backdoor pilot for CBS hit military series JAG. 

Although the drama didn’t “flourish” until the third season, it remains the network’s longest-running scripted primetime series with a loyal and passionate audience. 

The crime show follows special agents from D.C.’s Naval Criminal Investigative Service, led by Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

NCIS’ initial core cast included Michael Weatherly (played by Tony DiNozzo), Sasha Alexander (Caitlin Todd), Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto), and David McCallum (Ducky Mallard). 

Although the series has continued to thrive, this didn’t come without a number of behind-the-scene conflicts including one that led Bellisario to leave the show he created.

Read more: NCIS' Mark Harmon fresh-faced in throwback 80s movie role as he recalls filming

In 2007, it was reported that the executive producer and co-creator Bellisario was “fired” from NCIS after clashing with Harmon for his “chaotic management style”.

He retained a reputation as a “perfectionist” for the long hours and arduous shooting process. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, NCIS’ executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson revealed: “Eventually, actors felt like they would get two acts or one act, and they didn’t know what their arc was for the show. They couldn’t figure out their lines. 

“It was a very complicated show in the beginning. And so when we got to about year four, Harmon just felt like it was too hard. He never said to anybody, ‘Get rid of Don.’”

The showrunner recalled: “He just said, ‘This is too hard to work this way.’

“Eventually, the network went to Bellisario and said, ‘Maybe you should work from a distance from it and not be quite as involved in terms of the way you work,’ and so Bellisario, by the fifth year, was gone.”

Detailing his own exit, Bellisario told the publication: “It was just time for me to move on and do something else. I had done enough on the show, so I stepped away. It was my decision.”

Although his departure took place in 2007, he has since retained an executive producer title on the show, which he still holds today.”