Why is NCIS season 21 so short? The show itself wasn't the problem
NCIS season 21 ran just 10 episodes — from February 12 to May 6, 2024 — making it the shortest season in the show's two-decade history. For a series that routinely cranks out 20-plus episodes a year, that's a dramatic haircut.
The reason had nothing to do with ratings, cast, or CBS losing faith. The problem was everything around the show.
The short answer
The dual Hollywood strikes of 2023. The Writers Guild of America walked out in May 2023, and SAG-AFTRA followed in July, freezing scripted production across the industry for months. By the time both strikes were resolved that fall, NCIS had missed its usual mid-September premiere entirely. CBS trimmed the order to 10 episodes so the season could still start in February and wrap on its traditional May finale schedule.
How short is short?
- 10 episodes — versus the usual 20–24 per season since the show launched in 2003.
- The previous low was 16 — season 18, filmed at the height of the pandemic.
- A five-month delay — instead of September 2023, the premiere landed February 12, 2024.
What the season squeezed in anyway
Quite a lot, actually. Episode 2 served as a tribute to David McCallum, the beloved Ducky actor who passed away on September 25, 2023, during the hiatus. The season also delivered the NCIS franchise 's 1,000th episode across all its shows, which aired April 15, 2024. And the shorter order changed the storytelling itself — star Wilmer Valderrama told Entertainment Tonight the writers leaned into a more serialized, connected structure:
"Everyone knows it 's a shortened season. We're doing 10 episodes," he said, explaining the team treated it like a binge-style story rather than the conventional 22.
Season 22 returned to a full-length run in October 2024, right on schedule, and the franchise kept expanding around it.