REBECCA WHITTAKER
September 20, 2025, 3:00 PM
NCIS: Tony & Ziva Breaking Industry Stereotypes, Dominated Female Production
September has been nothing short of a dream, or miracle, for Tiva fans across the globe! NCIS: Tony & Ziva officially premiered September 4th, 2025 on Paramount Plus. The rom-action-thriller released with the first three episodes, followed by a new episode each Thursday until the finale, October 23rd. The series is a massive hit with Deadline reporting 6.8 million hours viewed within the first week of premiering. The trailer for the new series broke franchise records with 93 million in its first week of release.
Records aren’t the only thing the highly anticipated series is breaking. Tony and Ziva stars, Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, spoke to MoviePilot during their European press tour, where Weatherly revealed, “It is remarkable that four out of five blocks were staged by women. This is not often talked about. But I don't think it's something common in our industry when 80 percent of a TV series is staged by women.” The series is directed by four extraordinaire females - Mairzee Almas, Valerie Weiss, MJ Bassett and Tess Blake, and wraps up under the NCIS franchise veteran, Dennis Smith.
“There are five blocks with two episodes each. The first block was directed by Mairzee Almas and she had the big task of finding out what the world of the series looks like. She worked with Steve Lawes, the cameraman, and talked about the lenses, about the color palette. These are huge decisions that decite what comes next. Valerie Weiss directed the second block, so episodes 3 and 4, which you can now see as a couple. Then came MJ Bassett for the third block, which is really cool. Tessa Blake directed the fourth block and our old friend Dennis Smith ended the season with episodes 9 and 10,” added Weatherly to MoviePilot.
It doesn’t stop at directing - the executive producers of the series are majority female as well, including de Pablo, herself. A first for the Chilean actress, she spoke to Serien Junkies DE about the experience, “The fact that we are there as executive producers was already emerging long before the start of production. At that time there was no title, we were just two friends and talked about an idea that we absolutely wanted to realize. We found ourselves in this wonderfully creative space, a fantasy land where nothing concrete, nothing is real. There were, of course, some cornerstones. We knew they were close and had a child together. But otherwise we were completely free in the design”.
Following de Pablo, the other notable female executive producers include Mairzee Almas, Laurie Lieser, Shelley Meals and Christina Strain.
Breaking the barriers of an industry stereotype, NCIS: Tony & Ziva is proving how powerful a dominated female production can be! The next episode, episode six, premieres on Thursday, September 25th.