Two iterations of NCIS didn’t turn out to be one too many for fans. The ratings are out, and the No. 1 and 2 shows in all of TV last week were NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, with audiences of more than 20 million and 18 million. Can Shane Brennan, the executive producer and frequent scripter of both series, keep both balls nearly that high in the air? In this exclusive Q&A, Brennan tells TV Guide Magazine about his plans for the spinoff. For more, check out the cover story of TV Guide Magazine, on newsstands Oct. 1!


TV GUIDE: Everyone wants to know the deal on crossover between the two shows.
SHANE BRENNAN: Abby will visit Los Angeles. It’s a story that will be self-contained, but the ripple effect of what she’s involved in will go back to Washington with her, and it will play out in the second half of [the original show’s] season. It’s a two-way street here. When we do these crossover episodes, they’re about making sure that both shows are taking something from it. It’s not about one show supporting the other…. And we’ve got a crossover bad guy. There’s someone that we see on NCIS: Los Angeles who will actually end up in the other show as well, so that’ll be a bit of fun.

Are you prepared to identify that character yet?
The bad guy is a woman. It’s someone who Vance knows, this particular bad guy. And Vance, being the director of a federal agency and everyone’s boss, has that wonderful opportunity of being able to move back and forth at will between the shows. And the involvement he has with this particular bad guy begins in Los Angeles and basically ends in D.C. So having said that, there are other stories and other opportunities for both shows where you have a bad guy who can start the journey in D.C. and end up in Los Angeles, or who they jointly investigate. So I think there’s great potential there. It’ll be interesting to see how the audience reacts to that kind of story.

This new show is very big on location shooting.
The network wants it to be very recognizably Los Angeles, to differentiate the shows. And I have no problem doing that. It’s great to be shooting L.A. for L.A. Because don’t tell the audience, but we shoot D.C. here, rather than visit. So we’re pretty good at that stuff. But it’s really good to be able to point a camera and not have to worry about palm trees. In fact, we point the camera and if there are no palm trees in it, we make sure we find some.

What was the thinking behind the elaborate new set, which is a change from the setting the characters operated out of in “Legend,” the NCIS two-parter that was a backdoor pilot for the new series? I know it’s supposed to be an enclosed Spanish-style courtyard, and it was going to be explained as an abandoned mission, though that strained credibility, since there aren’t any real missions, abandoned or otherwise, in metro L.A.
The back-story is, Callen got shot, their operations were compromised, and they had to move. It was my original idea to put it in an old, very southern California building. In fact my initial thought was to put it in hangar no. 1 at LAX, which still exists—it was built in the 1920s. So this design is getting back to that original notion. And it’s unmistakably southern California. It’s a building that on the outside looks pretty run down, kind of let go. It’s in disguise. The building isn’t the building people think it is, the way that these agents when they go undercover are playing a lie, as well. So thematically, it kind of fits the notion of the show. It was originally [supposed to be] a mission, and then it became an administration building for a pumping station. That’s a little simpler to explain, given the urban nature of Los Angeles. So it’s had a number of different lives, and now in this latest it’s the undercover home for NCIS.

Since the “Legend” introduction, it looks like the show might have evolved from being an ensemble show with a strong buddy element between Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J to being more of a buddy show with a strong ensemble element.
It probably has evolved, and shows do. It’s probably moving more towards those buddy elements. Yet at the same time, we’ve got scenes and episodes where Kensi’s undercover and Dom is undercover, and Kensi teams up with Callen, and you do have those other combinations. I think the audience are gonna love with what we do with Kensi, in particular over these first few episodes. And then of course. on top of that, yes, you do have Hetty, Linda Hunt’s character. Everyone who has seen the show and watched some of the other episodes has instantly put Hetty on their list of all-time favorite characters, because of what Linda brings to the role. It is still very much an ensemble show, but those buddy elements are front and center.

I’ve never seen you really address what happened with Louise Lombard, who left after playing Macy, the team leader, in the “Legend” episodes. I assumed that if the emphasis was moving toward a buddy aspect, she might have seemed like third wheel. And the show doesn’t have a boss character now, so maybe it was thought that this show doesn’t need its own Gibbs, male or female?
Well, yeah, there was a lot of discussion about the best way to take the show. Louise did this amazing job, and her character, Special Agent Macy, still exists. She’s still out there, in my mind. There was a reference—and I’m not sure whether it’s still there or not, to be honest—that she was assigned to Tokyo. And I’m not going to rule out Macy returning, at some point in the future, as a guest or in the story arc. Everything and anything can happen.

The premiere was very action oriented and self contained, but you did spend a few minutes spending up the mystery of the “G” in Callen’s name—that the Chris O’Donnell character doesn’t know his first name. I didn’t know if you’ll just tease at that for a while or whether it’ll be an ongoing focus.
That’s gonna be an ongoing focus. We come back to that in the November sweeps. In the great tradition of NCIS, good things come to those who wait. And I think if the audience invests the time, they’re going to really enjoy the journey that he takes. It’s quite emotional. I’m trying to build up first of all the folklore of the show—seed those little nuggets around, and then over the course of many seasons, once the audience knows the characters and loves them, once they think what else could they do with these characters, then you flood them with these new thoughts. They love to see something new about Gibbs that has been hinted at. They love to see the truth about what happened to Ziva, why she killed Ari, what her relationship is with her father. All of those things are the ultimate sort of payment that a writer or creator can give to his audience. I try to do that with every show. I try to deliver in a very now sort of episodic way, too, but I love to go okay, good, I seeded that little thing in there for the future.

Is there almost a Bourne Identity element when it comes to Callen trying to figure out who he really is? Because it would be hard for him to be that mysterious and still have had a long and illustrious career in law enforcement.
It’s not like he’s had a loss of memory or anything like that. It’s quite simply that his earliest memories are of living in foster homes. And we establish that he spent… well, from when he was probably 5 until he was 18 years old, in a lot of different foster homes. So he doesn’t know his parents. He doesn’t know his original family. But interestingly, he has many families. And that basically shaped who he is and why he is particularly good at doing undercover work: because he had to fit into all these different families.

So the central mystery has to do with who his parents really are or where he originally came from before the foster homes?
I’ll say yes, but you can choose which of those questions the yes is to. (chuckle) There’s a very rich character back-story here. And without giving too much away, you’ll get a sense of how rich that background is in this particular episode in November sweeps. The story involves his immediate past—his shooting, when he was shot, which in itself takes him back 10 years… and, within the episode, takes him back to a much younger time, to when he was just a teenaged boy.

When he got shot, it was while he was ogling a young lady. Are we to take from that detail that he’s a ladies’ man?
He’s a man where, when it comes to his current personal life, he’s a little guarded. We do reveal a little about his dating life in episode 6. There’s a character who comes into the show as a guest, a female secret service agent, and we learn a little about Callen’s take on women and dating and romance.

LL Cool J’s character has a family, which is almost unique in the NCIS universe, since on the other show they are each other’s family. Would we ever see any of his domestic life? LL Cool J said that, as far as he knew, his family hadn’t been cast.
It’ll be a while before we move into Sam’s domestic situation. I can tell people that I can’t wait to do that. Because we’ve got a very interesting back-story or domestic situation for Sam’s character that informs who he is. But I want the audience to get to know the characters in the show and figure out how they work together and how they mesh up. Then we’ll start to peel back the layers.

Any quick thumbnail sketches of the other regulars?
Hetty does everything, from wardrobe to tech to weapons to all of the administrative stuff. If you look in her office, she’s got a collection of old cameras. She is a mother and a friend and a counselor, in her own kind of way, though she keeps everyone on edge. She’s been in the theater and the movie world, where everything’s not quite real. She will do the most unexpected things. Hetty is the heart of the show, and Nate Getz (Peter Cambor) is the conscience and the brain. Nate is an operational psychologist who’s very good at getting inside people’s heads. And he’s got in his own head a profile on everyone in the unit, all their strengths and weaknesses. Kensi Blye (Daniela Ruah) is a former Marine brat and lived on military bases around the world. She was headhunted by all of the agencies, when she was in college, and went straight from college into NCIS.

Serious NCIS fans are heavily into the character quirks, but these are things that have been parceled out very sparingly over a period of years. It would be difficult to get all that in at the beginning of a series like this when you're trying to do action-packed, self-contained episodes. So it’ll be interesting to see what kind of pace you will parcel these personal details out at.
In a nutshell, you’ve stated the most challenging part of what we’re trying on NCIS: Los Angeles. The NCIS flagship, as I like to call it, is now in season 7. and for the first I guess three or four seasons, there was a lot of little hints and moments where you learned a little about the characters’ background. Over those first four years, a lot of story was built up and alluded to. And in season 5, 6, and 7, we’re exploring that. It takes a lot of episodes and a lot of time to build up those layers. And to try and achieve that straight out of the gate on NCIS: Los Angeles, it’s just impossible. So what you try and do is introduce characters that the audience can latch onto, can be intrigued by, and want to know more, and then over the course of seasons, peel back the layers of that onion.

Now, NCIS: Los Angeles, we won’t have the luxury of doing it like that over four years. Because it’s a show that is a sister show to NCIS, the audience will be looking for a little more of who these people are and their quirks a little sooner. Certainly by the end of the first season you will know more about these characters than the audience knew about the characters on NCIS at the end of their first season.

As far as the chemistry between LL and Chris, is their banter interchangeable at this point, or does it reveal who they are individually?
Interestingly, yes, there is kind of a shape to it. Sam tends to have a lot of fun, and Callen tends to sometimes prod him and poke him to get a reaction. And sometimes it takes Sam a minute or two to realize that Callen with a straight face is actually poking a bit of fun at him. At the same time, Sam knows that he can push Callen’s buttons in a certain way, too. So they sort of each give as well as they take. Sam is more the jokester—he’ll have fun straight away. Whereas Callen’s character tends to be a little more cerebral about it.


I was talking with Chris O’Donnell, and he said that six episodes into shooting, he hadn’t had any “master of disguise” moments yet. But maybe that influenced you to make the show less about carefully planned undercover work and more about opportunities to throw these guys into situations and have them figure it out on the fly, so that chemistry can come through.
The “master of disguise” is never a phrase I [used]… In fact, I’ve kind of always tried to point out to people that you won’t see them in fake wigs and mustaches. It’s more to do with them sliding into a role. Now, if they have to be a Navy lieutenant or something, sure, they’re gonna put on a costume. If Kensi had to be a stripper, of course she’s gonna put on the costume required to make that happen. Those elements of having a plan and being adaptable and being able to come up with something on the fly, that is very much about what the show is. Where it’s, okay, the plan just fell apart, what are they gonna do? How are they gonna get out of this one? And I think the audience will respond to their quick wit. They can improvise. So that’s more of what the show is about than the master of disguise aspects.

Was there anything about the reaction to "Legend" that influenced how you wrote their characters once the show got underway?
Probably the biggest influence, or at least acknowledgement of what the show was really about… I’ll go back to a very specific scene in “Legend 2.” They’re in an apartment and there’s a body in the bedroom. Callen’s in the living room, Sam’s in the bedroom , and in walks the girl. And the audience is like, okay what’s gonna happen now? And Callen’s phone rings and it’s Sam in the next room saying “You got a plan?” Everyone loved that scene, because there’s a lightness to it in a very serious moment in the story. An important plot turning point, and yet you kind of have to smile, That’s when I said, that’s the show, right there. And I’m not ignoring all of the other elements—Nate Getz and all of the gizmos upstairs. But to me, you take that as the beating heart of this show, and you’re gonna please a lot of the audience. So that little scene almost became the pilot in my head. And sure, it was scripted that way, but Chris and LL breathed that life into it. That’s the show.