The Character Exit That Hurt NCIS The Most

After over 23 seasons on-air, the long-reigning CBS crime drama “NCIS” has seen more than its fair share of character exits. From Michael Weatherly‘s wisecracking Tony Dinozzo to Mark Harmon‘s unforgettable Leroy Jethro Gibbs, “NCIS” audiences have lost more fan favorites than they can count — but it was the departure of Cote de Pablo‘s Ziva David that perhaps most affected the show as a whole.
First introduced in Season 3 as the replacement for Sasha Alexander‘s tragic Caitlin Todd, Ziva quickly worked her way into the NCIS fold, entertaining a long-running flirtation with Tony Dinozzo while finding an unlikely father figure in Gibbs.