NCIS: Los Angeles slacking off and calling it quits after a measly 14 seasons
The Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J-starring CBS series will end with its upcoming season finale
Aux News NCIS
In a shocking display of laziness—of the sort it certainly didn’t learn from its parent series, now into its 20th season and counting—CBS spin-off series NCIS: Los Angeles is calling it quits after a mere 14 seasons on the air. Spin-offs these days, really, we don’t even know what to do with them.
This is per TV Line, reporting that the show’s current 14th season will be its last, bringing its saga of Los Angeles-based naval crime to a close. (Just imagine: Before this franchise, we never knew how crime-filled the water could be!) The series stars Chris O’Donnell, plus Daniela Ruah, LL Cool J, Eric Christian Olsen, Madalion Rahimi, Caleb Castille, and Gerald McRaney, who as their commanding officer—a sort of “major” “dad,” if you will—commands his tireless… troops?… to stop all crimes that occur on or near Poseidon’s domain in the city of angels. (Other past cast members include Nia Long and the late Miguel Ferrer.)
To be fair to the listless slackers of NCIS: Los Angeles, they do go out as the longest-running of the NCIS spin-offs, with the series currently clocking in at 313 episodes. (For more, please consult The NCIS Math Sidebar, below.) That puts it way out ahead of Scott Bakula’s NCIS: New Orleans, which tapped out at 7 seasons in 2021, and NCIS: Hawai’i, which is currently airing its second season.
And now, The NCIS Math Sidebar, where we ask: How much NCIS is there, total? The answer, across the main series and all three extent spinoffs, turns out to be 947 episodes, or if we’re accounting for commercial breaks—as we must!—just about 12 hours short of 40 straight days and nights. Just imagine Jesus, wandering in the desert for all that time, with nothing to comfort him but the siren call of naval crimes.
Note: The NCIS Math Sidebar refuses to incorporate JAG into its calculations, despite all these shows technically being spin-offs of that one. Nobody’s paying us enough to do JAG Math.
NCIS: Los Angeles will wrap up its run on May 14.
47 Comments
The Simpsons, of course, has everyone beat in longevity, but at one time, wasn’t MASH the king of the old hill for years on TV?
I think that might have been Gunsmoke, which went for like 400+ episodes. MASH was “king of the old hill” for its last episode being the most-viewed TV program until some recent SuperBowl.
Oh, and I learned, via not checking my sources on the internet, that MASH was owned by Fox Entertainment, which was bought by Disney.
Therefore, Klinger is now a Disney Princess!
Math checks out to me
Worder if Mattel would do a doll of him.
In my head cannon, he always was!
It’s still the highest-rated program ever by a wide margin, with a 60.2 rating compared to 53.3 for the conclusion to Dallas’s “Who shot JR?” cliffhanger. Few observations:-One big reason the MASH finale was so highly-rated is that before then it wasn’t common for shows, even long-running popular one, to have their finale be treated as a big event. That’s why another one of the highest-rated finales ever was the 1967 finale of The Fugitive, since that show did have its finale be a big event.-The highest-rated Super Bowl ever is still the one from 1982. I know network TV ratings were a lot higher back then, but the Super Bowl’s only gotten bigger and bigger since then(for one thing, the commercials and halftime shows weren’t big draws back then), so that’s still weird to me. Its rating was 49.1, the 4th highest ever. The 3rd-highest is the final part of Roots at 51.1. That means there’ve been only 3 programs in US history to be watched by more than half the country.
In 1967 and 1982 there weren’t 300+ channels from which to choose.
I know.
Actually, The Simpsons is the second longest still running animated show in the world.By about twenty years.
So what’s the 1st longest? When I lightly Google, ol’ Bart still comes up as the longest.
I assume they mean the Japanese Sazae-san, which started in 1969. How about “longest-running English-language animated show that is widely known by people outside of Japan?”
Hey, Big in Japan is an expression for a reason!
So that’s what Chris O’Donnell has been doing all these years.
Other bland looking boring actors took his place over the years in movies.
Hey! Timothy Chalamet is as entitled to a career as anyone else!
He’s the OG of the Chrises
Lucky him.
Another career ruined by an untimely nipple slip.
He’s biding his time, waiting for Batman and Robin 2.
for them 2 what?
2Batman2Robin
2ManyNipples
“The answer, across the main series and all three extent spinoffs…”The word you’re looking for is extant.
“Party time! Extant!”
Cross franchise, “Law and Order” has them all beat: 1283 and counting eps to date. By comparison, “The Simpsons” over 34 seasons has 740 to date.
By further comparison, The Simpsons is the second longest running animated show in the world. The show ahead of The Simpsons started about 20 years before it.
You know it’s time to quit when you can’t find body armor that fits and you start looking like the Proud Boys……
It looks like what you would buy for your kids to wear on Halloween. smh
Has Chris O’Donnell—wait, for that matter, LL Cool J, too. Have they been on this show this entire time? I guess that would answer the question I didn’t know I had as to their whereabouts.
Yes, they are the only 2, along with the lead actress (Daniela Rueh?) who have been on since the first episode.
Other cast members have included academy award winning actress Linda Hunt, but since she’s a gay woman, no need to mention her I guess?
The most upsetting thing about this is that we won’t get to see NCIS:LA cast members appear on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert where Colbert will eventually ask them “Why so much naval crime?”I don’t remember him asking this from guests from the other NCIS shows (maybe Bakula?) – for some reason it’s the LA cast that gets asked this question again and again.
What’s the answer though? I’ve somehow never seen an episode of any NCIS, but I was wondering how they support that volume of episodes about a very specific investigating body. Like, the Navy really needs some overhaul if there is this much crime going on within it.
“Other past cast members include Nia Long and the late Miguel Ferrer”Really? No shout out to Oscar winner Linda Hunt, who appeared in (as you might say) a measly 280 episodes?
I came and made this same comment, asking if she wasn’t mentioned because she’s a gay woman. This site…
There was only room for mentions of one person related to David Lynch’s Dune, and of course they chose the nepo baby.
The best part about this show was that Linda Hunt is a stone-cold badass super-spy. . . who looks like Linda Hunt.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Hawaii gets axed too—ratings have been on the slide.
313 episodes and didn’t even outlast the mothership series. Well beyond the 10 seasons and 232 episodes of CSI Miami, which also failed to outlive its parent series.Any other spinoff that can break that record of most episodes and still being canceled before its parent?
Did someone forget about Linda Hunt?
Did someone forget about Linda Hunt?
FYI-Linda Hunt was always the best part of this show.
Ah yes…the NCIS/L&O/SVU/SUV that has no 80’s heartthrobs or rappers.
LL Cool J?
damn, I thought he was Chris O’Donnell.