Fans of NCIS have been missing Ziva David ever since the departure of star Cote de Pablo, but NCIS showrunner Gary Glasberg is confident viewers will quickly embrace Ziva’s replacement: NSA analyst Eleanor “Ellie”; Bishop (Emily Wickersham), who’ll be introduced in tonight’s episode.
As Glasberg describes it to TVGuide.com, the addition of a new character isn’t “so much about reinventing or doing anything that different. NCIS is still NCIS. All of the dynamics are there…the vibe of the show is the same, the chemistry is the same, the tone is the same. It’s just that we’ve got this new character and she brings something new to the party.”;
“We had started to sort of talk about the idea of doing a story line that involves the NSA … and someone who really kind of looks at things from a global standpoint, someone really wrapped up in sort of the international view of terrorism and the way things work,”; says Glasberg. “We felt that that could be a fun addition in working with our team…the dynamic between her personality, her eccentricity, her quirk and how she interacts with our group is just fantastic.”;
Bishop joins an NCIS investigation into a crime that is identical to a hypothetical security threat she described several years earlier, and winds up clicking with the team in ways that make Gibbs (Mark Harmon) realize she could become a valuable asset. “We start to see the wheels turning for Gibbs,”; adds Glasberg, “and by the end of the episode we understand that she’s going to stick around for a while.”;
You can get your first glimpse of Ellie Bishop on tonight’s episode of NCIS, airing at 8 p.m. EST/PST on Global.
