'NCIS: Origins' review: Meet the young Leroy Jethro Gibbs

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The last time we saw Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was on the episode that aired Oct. 11, 2021, when he hugged it out with old friend and colleague Tim McGee (Sean Murray) after telling him that he wasn't going back home with him. Gibbs decided to stick it out in the Alaskan wilderness to reflect on his life. With "NCIS: Origins" — a prequel that opens in 1991 — we are told that he actually has done some soul-searching.

This begins with the young Gibbs (Austin Stowell) arriving at the NIS (Naval Investigative Service — predecessor to NCIS) in Camp Pendleton as damaged goods. He's mourning the death of his wife and daughter, and has failed the NIS psych exam — a concern to special agent Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino) but not to the tough agent in charge, Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid).

Harmon, by the way, narrates.

MY SAY That much-anticipated Harmon cameo in Monday's opener is brief but also evocative — the old cowboy, sitting by a fire somewhere in Alaska, jotting words in a diary. Hardly a word-man by trade or disposition, nor particularly reflective, this high plains drifter is taking stock of his life, with only the stars above and the wilderness beyond as witness.

He says in voice-over at the episode's outset (then picks up the same theme by its conclusion) that "no matter how hard you try or in my case how far you go, you can never leave it all behind ... This is the story I don't tell."

It's hard to believe that after nearly 400 episodes and 19 seasons there are any stories left to "tell," but "Origins" at least wants to try. The reason is that the particular untold story he's referring to is both the hook for a new series and (possibly) the key to an iconic fictional TV life too. What really was going on inside that handsome, clean-shaven noggin with the perfect hair parted so perfectly down the middle over all those seasons? Well?

Much like the elder Leroy, the young version (Stowell) doesn't offer a lot of clues. With a military-style buzz cut and tightly clenched jaw, he too is a cipher prone to bouts of silence or reflection. Share what's in your "gut," Franks demands — that gut being the essential Gibbs' polestar, even more than the heart or head. He didn't follow his gut when he left his wife and daughter behind (both later killed in a car crash caused by a drug lord). Haunted by guilt and self-doubt — if not quite immobilized by either — he's become dour and irritable. Perhaps this series will explain how he got from this Leroy to the one the rest of us knew — the one who at least had a sense of humor.

But don't be too surprised if that story-he-didn't-tell (but will now) is not all that revealing. Monday's two-part opener does a nicely efficient job in setting up a new series, and perhaps even a road map for another franchise, "Blue Bloods," in search of its next chapter. What's missing are any surprising revelations, nor exactly the promise of any either.

Maybe that's because we already know Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He's an American archetype as old as the hills (or Gary Cooper), who arrived in the wake of 9/11 to fight the bad guys and restore viewers' faith in that fast-fading archetype (which was in danger of becoming an artifact). We didn't and don't need to know about his interior life. The exterior one was good enough.

So, Leroy, some advice. Sit back, look up at those stars, and — for sure — watch out for bears. You don't need to open old wounds. You need to relax, or at least move on. 

BOTTOM LINE Solid opener that otherwise oversells the premise.