‘NCIS’ season 12: Hopes for Michael Weatherly, Mark Harmon, story moving forward

While tonight may mark the end of “NCIS” season 11, there is obviously still a season on the other side that you can start to look ahead to. Season 12 will premiere on CBS this fall, and based on what has been released so far, there won’t be any huge changes. The cast all seemingly have deals to return, and most of the talent behind the scenes should also be back. Filming will start later this summer, with the writers of course coming back to work several weeks ahead of the cast.

Of course, it’s far too early to be able to sit here and definitively say what is going to happen on the next season, but we can at least offer up some of what we would like to see. Just take a look at the five items below.

1. A new principal villain – The last one that we had on the show was Parsa, and that story ended a good while ago this season. It should be time for a new nefarious foe to enter the mix.

2. Crossovers! – You have three shows on the air this fall as a part of the franchise, and you would be absolutely insane to not take advantage of that simple fact. We expect at least one or two to happen over the course of the year.

3. Make Margo Harshman a series regular – Is this too much to ask? Delilah was a surprising and great addition to the story, and “NCIS” could use more of someone like her around. While we know that another cast member would be expensive and the show has lost many demo viewers, it is never a mistake to invest in quality that could add to the characters that are already there.

4. More returning characters – To us, anytime that you can bring back somebody from the past for another episode or two, that’s a great thing since it taps into the nostalgia of your show. We know that we’ll see more of Gibbs’ exes next season, and if we can get more of Tony Sr., we’ll be super-happy. While we don’t envision Cote de Pablo will be back as a regular anytime soon, we wouldn’t rule out some sort of update as we get further and further removed from the negotiations this past summer.

5. Character stories – What made the final episodes of this season the best since the first few was that they got back to individual characters, who they are, and what makes them tick. Let’s keep it that way so that Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, and the rest of the cast can have moments to shine. We still feel like there is hope for Bishop, at least in that there will be chances over the summer to really figure out stories for her after basically throwing her into the world and then trying to figure things out on the fly. That is never an easy challenge for any show.

We’ll be back soon with a review of the “NCIS” finale, and you can see that and other stories related to the show over here. Also, sign up now to grab further updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: CBS