Why ‘NCIS: Tony & Ziva’ Was Canceled: The Spinoff’s Cost ‘Did Not Make Sense’ for Its Audience
NCIS fans cried foul in late 2025 when Paramount+ canceled spinoff series NCIS: Tony & Ziva after just one season.
Viewers had waited years to see Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) back on their screens. So, the abrupt cancellation after a single, 10-episode season was especially jarring. But an exec at the streaming service says that no matter how much people liked the show – which followed the NCIS couple on the run in Europe – the numbers just didn’t add up.
Paramount+ exec addresses ‘Tony & Ziva’ cancellation
“Tony & Ziva, unfortunately, for the cost, it did not make sense with the viewing, although we were all fans of it,” Jane Wiseman, EVP and head of originals for Paramount+, told Deadline in an August 2025 interview.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva filmed in Europe, mostly in Budapest, Hungary, as well as in Spain. Salary figures for the show’s two leads haven’t been disclosed, but both Weatherly and de Pablo were earning six figures per episode before they left NCIS.
Paramount+ didn’t release viewing figures for Tony & Ziva. According to Nielsen, it had 371 million viewing minutes during its premiere week (September 1-7, 2025). That put it in eighth place for that week, noted The Hollywood Reporter. It failed to make the Nielsen top 10 in subsequent weeks and was even struggling to remain in the top 10 on Paramount+ (via ScreenRant).
Michael Weatherly returns to ‘NCIS’ in season 24
While Tony & Ziva ended up being a single-season show, its influence will still be felt in the NCISverse.
“It’s going to be very interesting to see what is revealed and unfurled, but I can tell you this: There is a definite connection between [Tony & Ziva] and the canon that that created within — there’s not going to be retconning of like, oh, Tony & Ziva never happened,” Weatherly said at Comic Con Midlands in Birmingham, U.K., in July (via TV Insider).
Weatherly made his comments shortly after CBS announced that he would return to NCIS this fall in a season-long arc.
“God, I wish I could tell you one great thing. … I just know that it’s going to be an exciting return … I’m very much about respecting the show I’m coming into and being aware that they’ve built an extraordinarily successful tenure run but, that doesn’t mean that what we did isn’t going to be able to live alongside and inside that show,” he continued. “And if I say any more, I’m going to start saying specific things, so I’m going to be quiet.”
CBS’s synopsis of the upcoming NCIS Season 24 premiere reveals more details about what to expect from DiNozzo’s return, describing him as “newly arrived in D.C. to open a satellite office of his private security firm.”
NCIS Season 24 premieres Tuesday, October 6 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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