For over two decades, NCIS has been running wild on CBS with a seemingly infinite loop of syndication reruns on USA Network. At present, the flagship series is grinding through its 21st round with much more to come. That includes a Ziva and Tony spin off as well as the NCIS: Origins series, which will take the audience back to the early days of Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ investigative career. NCIS: Sydney remains fairly fresh, and we’re not even touching the other three city-specific spin offs at the moment because we are here to talk about Abby Sciuto.
Yes, that would be the peppy goth Chief Forensic Scientist character portrayed by Pauley Perrette. She left the series in 2018, apparently amid much drama (we’ll get to that in a moment), but would the Abby character ever return? CBS Studios President David Stapf addressed the subject when quizzed by Deadline, which inquired about a flat-out return to NCIS or perhaps an Abby-specific spin off. Stapf seemed open to the thought:
“Not a bad idea. We haven’t talked about it or thought about it. We love Pauley, and she’s always welcome in any of the NCIS franchise, but it hasn’t come to us from the writers and/or from her. I kind of was kidding when I said, it’s not a bad idea but it’s genuinely not a bad idea, she was a beloved character.”
As for whether Perrette would be open to the possibility… that is a complicated detail to consider. TMZ previously published now-deleted 2018 tweets from the actress, who wrote, “NO I AM NOT COMING BACK! EVER! (Please stop asking?) I am terrified of Harmon and him attacking me. I have nightmares about it.” As TMZ further detailed, Perrette alleged that Harmon had “body checked” her after a 2016 incident in which his dog reportedly attacked a crew member on set, resulting in a hospital visit and stitches.
Perrette has, as mentioned, deleted reference to the incident on her social media pages, but TMZ brought receipts of her having alleged, “THIS happened To my crew member and I fought like hell to keep it from happening again! To protect my crew!” as well as “And then I was physically assaulted for saying NO!? and I lost my job.”
Later and as Perrette was gearing up for CBS Broke (which ran for one season in 2020), Deadline followed up with CBS President Of Entertainment Kelly Kahl, who appeared to believe that the situation was resolved:
“I can’t speak to to what she’s addressing in her tweets. She came to us with a workplace concern, we immediately investigated it and resolved it to everyone’s satisfaction, and we’re very happy to have her on the air with us this year. I don’t think she’d be back with us if she had huge concerns.”
At this time, Perrette has not addressed any (current) speculation of returning as Abby, although she certainly didn’t seem interested back in 2018. She did, however, pay tribute to the late David McCallum (who portrayed Donald “Duckie” Mallard) when he passed away in 2023 while writing, “What a life. What a legend. What a journey. And your legacy Will always be The love you have for your family.”
