'NCIS Hawai’i' Showrunners Tease Season 4 Plans Before Cancellation

Gary Cole, LL Cool J, Vanessa Lachey, and Noah Mills. Karen Neal/CBS

The writing team behind NCIS Hawai’i broke their silence about the show’s shocking cancellation — and hinted what was meant to happen in season 4.

“We were obviously surprised. If we’d known it was coming, we probably wouldn’t have ended the series on a cliffhanger,” Jan Nash, Christopher Silber and Matt Bosack told TVLine in a joint email interview posted on Friday, July 26. “The fact that the studio and the network didn’t stop us makes it seem like they might not have seen it coming either.”

Nash, Silber and Bosack said “it still stings” that NCIS Hawai’i came to an end despite having such a strong fanbase.

“We loved our show and know other people loved it, too, but the TV business is a fickle mistress and one can’t take business decisions personally,” the trio continued. “We did what we set out to do. We created a show with a strong female lead and a cast that reflected the diversity of Hawai’i and the world. We told interesting Navy crime stories. All while maintaining a workplace where people could hopefully do their best work and be valued for it. That gives us a lot to be proud of.”

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NCIS: Hawai’i premiered in 2021 as a spinoff of NCIS, which is currently still airing new episodes on CBS. The show was the first NCIS spinoff with a female lead with Vanessa Lachey playing Special Agent in Charge Jane Tennant who ran a team of elite naval criminal agents on the island of Oahu.

Vanessa Lachey as Jane Tennant and Noah Mills as Jesse Boone. Karen Neal/CBS

Us Weekly confirmed in April that CBS was not renewing NCIS: Hawai’i for a fourth season. The island-centered show aired its series finale one month later but Nash, Silber and Bosack still had plenty of stories left to tell.

“We loved our repertoire of characters and we would have kept using them as much as we could,” they explained to TVLine. “We were talking about Tennant’s mom and Ernie’s ex-wife, but other than following up on our cliffhanger, there were no ‘musts’ on the list. Our goals every season were the same: tells good stories with these great actors.”

The showrunners were asked about Lucy (Yasmine Al-Bustami) and Kate (Tori Anderson)’s brief talks of weddings, adding, “We hadn’t fully landed on what was going to happen in season 4. But there would have been some movement. Whether it would have been a wedding, meeting families, or some other thing, we didn’t know.”

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Nash, Silber and Bosack also confirmed there were always plans to finally meet Jesse’s (Noah Mills) wife and child.

“We started every season planning to meet her and she would have shown up eventually. Hope springs eternal,” they noted. “The NCIS universe is an amazing place and it would be wonderful if any of our characters continued in it [in another franchise].”

The trio concluded by issuing a message to fans still fighting to bring NCIS: Hawai’i back, adding, “Thank you. We loved our show, and the fact that so many other people loved it too is gratifying. They were the greatest fans we’d ever experienced on a show. And we share their passion and heartbreak. We are grateful that we got to be a worldwide ohana for as long as we did.”

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Executives previously shot down hope that the cancellation could be reversed. President of CBS Entertainment Amy Reisenbach simply said “no” in May when asked at a network event about NCIS: Hawai’i potentially returning due to the outpouring of support.

Reisenbach went on to share the reason behind the cancellation.

“It is incumbent on us to always keep the schedule fresh, keep momentum going,” she detailed. “Everything came back [from the Hollywood strikes] really strong, but ultimately we have to look at the cohesiveness of the schedule flow. We have to evaluate the financials and the performance overall, and we make tough decisions.”