NCIS season 15: Michael Weatherly ‘returning’ stories slightly exaggerated

Michael Weatherly

Is Michael Weatherly returning for NCIS season 15? We of course would love to see that happen, but there are some hang-ups.

For one, Weatherly is a series regular on Bulland its filming schedule in New York overlaps almost the entirety of the work that he would be able to do on his former stomping grounds. NCIS, despite being set in Washington DC, actually films in the Los Angeles area. It’s not that easy for Michael, who is in the majority of the scenes on Bull, to fly out to the other side of the country to film a guest spot on a different show. Maybe there’s time to do it at the end of the season if Bull finishes filming first, or if there are some scaled breaks around the holiday season.

Ultimately, though, that’s just speculation — and there are some places that are spiraling out of control with some of the speculation that the Tony character could somehow be coming back.

Multiple reports on the internet recently claimed that Weatherly could return to the series for a guest spot, and there are two pieces of evidence that they are looking to in order to further prove that.

1. Robert Wagner returning for an episode – We recently discussed that Anthony DiNozzo Sr. will be coming back for another episode, and there are obviously people out there who want to take this as a sign that Tony could be coming back, as well. However, remember that Wagner returned for multiple episodes of the show last season without Weatherly stopping by. Don’t jump to conclusions based on that.

2. Comments Weatherly made earlier this summer – In these comments, he indicated that he was open to coming back on the show someday, but not that it was actually happening anytime soon. He knows what his schedule is, and what else is he going to say in this sort of interview? Do you really expect him to say that he doesn’t want to go back or to disparage is former employer? We do genuinely think that he would like to go back at some point, but we’re talking about maybe a milestone episode or some sort of season / series finale.

For the record, we do think that getting Cote de Pablo back for an episode would be the sort of thing that would draw Weatherly back … not that we see this happening at any point in the near future, either. (Watch someone will now report that this is something that could be happening.) We don’t want to get into the business of creating false expectation or hopes.

Both NCIS and Bull are returning to CBS this fall, and we’ll have more news on each of them as their premiere dates near. Here are a couple of stories worth checking out.

NCIS Check out a feature all about the future of Wilmer Valderrama’s Nick Torres.

Bull Find out more information about an upcoming guest star who happens to be a former Charlie’s Angels actress.

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