NCIS: New York Review: LL Cool J and Scott Caan’s Spinoff Lets New York Steal the Show
Sam Hanna is getting a new assignment, and this one hits close to home. In NCIS: New York, LL COOL J reprises the role he has played since 2009, first across fourteen seasons of NCIS: Los Angeles and later a run on NCIS: Hawai’i, now putting the character back in his own hometown. CBS Studios developed the spinoff with R. Scott Gemmill, with Byron Balasco serving as showrunner, and the series premieres Tuesday, October 6 at 9:00 to 10:00 PM ET/PT on CBS, streaming live on Paramount+, as the middle leg of an all-NCIS Tuesday that opens with the mothership’s season 24 premiere at 8:00 PM and closes with NCIS: Origins’ season 3 premiere at 10:00 PM.
Ahead of that premiere, we got an early look at the pilot. Sam returns to a New York City he barely recognizes, placed under Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robyn Wells (Jennifer Beals) and paired with fellow native New Yorker Nick Schaeffer (Scott Caan), with Jacqueline Byers, Shane Harper and Devin Druid rounding out the new team. Here’s the full breakdown across our five categories (2 points maximum each).
Table of Contents
NCIS: New York Story – 1.5/2
Good Points: Personal Stakes, A Grounded Case of the Week
A Death That Hits Close
The pilot wastes no time giving Sam a reason to care about the case in front of him: his friend, Navy reservist Jack Halloway, turns up dead, and Sam personally asks Robyn Wells for permission to investigate. That personal hook does real work, turning what could have been a generic procedural setup into something with actual weight behind it, and it’s the thread that pulls Sam into joining a team again after years of working mostly alone.
Where It Falls Short
Once the personal hook is established, the case itself unfolds in a shape any NCIS viewer will recognize instantly: interviews, a few red herrings, a late reveal. The pilot is clearly more interested in setting up its team and its city than in reinventing the case-of-the-week formula, which is a defensible choice for episode one, but it does mean the actual mystery is the least memorable part of the hour.
NCIS: New York Cast – 2/2
Special Praise: LL COOL J, The New Team’s Chemistry
A Homecoming With Weight
LL COOL J gets more room to play Sam as a man genuinely unsettled by his own hometown, rather than simply recycling the confident operator audiences already know from fourteen seasons in Los Angeles. He’s spoken about the move in deeply personal terms, calling it “a full circle moment” that reminds him to “never forget where you came from,” and that sincerity comes through in a performance that lets Sam look a little lost before he settles back in.
The Rest of the Team
Scott Caan slots in easily as Nick Schaeffer, leaning on real off-screen rapport with LL COOL J to sell their partnership almost instantly. Jacqueline Byers’ Addison “Addy” Ross, raised in a Navy family with three older brothers, Shane Harper’s homesick Alaska transplant Wyatt Sellers, and Devin Druid’s hacker-turned-tech-specialist Sean Sullivan, working off a penalty for his own crime, all get just enough of a hook in the pilot to make the ensemble feel worth sticking with beyond episode one.
NCIS: New York World – 1.5/2
Good Points: Location Shooting, New York as a Character
Shot on the Actual Streets
The production leans hard into filming on location rather than faking New York on a backlot, and it shows. LL COOL J put it simply: “New York is like a main character in the show,” and the pilot backs that up, using the city’s density and texture as a constant visual anchor instead of generic skyline shots between scenes.
A Narrow Slice So Far
The pilot mostly sticks to the new field office and a handful of New York locations tied directly to the case, so the wider sense of this version of the city, beyond “NCIS: Los Angeles, but here instead,” is still mostly a promise rather than something fully delivered yet.
Music Score and Effects – 1/2
NCIS: New York skips a traditional opening theme in favor of a brief title card, which is a small enough change on paper but does cost the show a bit of the franchise’s usual identity in the opening seconds. The rest of the score sticks to the dependable, unobtrusive procedural style the NCIS franchise has run on for over two decades, competent and tense exactly when it needs to be, without adding much of its own personality.
There’s no real effects work to speak of in the pilot, this is a grounded, dialogue-and-investigation show through and through, and the practical New York location work does more heavy lifting than any visual effect could.
Originality – 1/2
How It Stands Apart
Carrying one character across three different NCIS shows, from Los Angeles to Hawai’i to New York, gives Sam Hanna a continuity few procedural leads ever get, and the pilot leans into that history as real emotional backstory rather than a gimmick.
Where It Loses Ground
Strip away that one wrinkle, though, and NCIS: New York is still very much working from the established NCIS playbook: a confident team lead, a city-as-backdrop setting, a case-of-the-week structure built for decades of syndication. It’s a franchise expansion rather than a reinvention, and by this point that’s exactly what it’s designed to be.
Gamersuniverse Score:
7 out of 10 stars⭐
NCIS: New York doesn’t try to reinvent its franchise so much as relocate it, and the pilot makes a strong enough case for the move. LL COOL J finds real vulnerability in a character who’s spent fourteen-plus seasons being the steady one, Scott Caan slides into the partnership with easy chemistry, and the new team gets just enough definition to make a return trip worthwhile. The case of the week is forgettable and the wider city still feels more sketched than fully explored, but as a reintroduction to Sam Hanna on new turf, this is a confident, well-cast start.
NCIS: New York premieres Tuesday, October 6 at 9:00 PM ET/PT on CBS and Paramount+.
Score Summary
- Story: 1.5/2
- Cast: 2/2
- World: 1.5/2
- Music Score and Effects: 1/2
- Originality: 1/2
Total: 7/10
Will you be tuning in for the premiere? Team Sam or Team Nick? Let us know in the comments.
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NCIS: New York
Summary
NCIS: New York doesn’t try to reinvent its franchise so much as relocate it, and the pilot makes a strong enough case for the move. LL COOL J finds real vulnerability in a character who’s spent fourteen-plus seasons being the steady one, Scott Caan slides into the partnership with easy chemistry, and the new team gets just enough definition to make a return trip worthwhile. The case of the week is forgettable and the wider city still feels more sketched than fully explored, but as a reintroduction to Sam Hanna on new turf, this is a confident, well-cast start.
Pictures: Paramount
