The NCIS Character That Deserves A Spin-Off

The "NCIS" franchise has already blessed us with a half-dozen spin-offs so far, with another one — "NCIS: New York," starring LL COOL J and Scott Caan — coming to CBS this fall. So what's one more, huh?

Now that Season 23 of the flagship "NCIS" series is in the books — check out our finale post mortem here — we're taking a look at the main cast to see if anyone on Alden Parker's team might merit their own series. (Of course we don't necessarily want anyone to leave the show, but if they do, we'd rather they get a nice promotion out of it.) And when we look at Season 23's cast, there's one name that stands out as a prime candidate for a spin-off: Jessica Knight.

Katrina Law joined the "NCIS" cast in Season 18 as Jessica Knight and has been a mainstay ever since, fitting right in with the team and kicking butt convincingly in her many action scenes. So why does she deserve her own spin-off? Read on to hear our case.

This past season on "NCIS," Jessica Knight began working with the special task force known as NCIS Elite, which involves dangerous missions separate from the rest of the NCIS team. So far, Knight's missions haven't kept her away for too long — one entailed bringing in former NCIS team member Ellie Bishop — but what if being a part of NCIS Elite did start to pull Knight away more? We could see a series called "NCIS Elite" where Knight leads her own team of top-notch covert agents as they travel the world to crack the toughest cases.

The way we picture it, "NCIS Elite" would be a little more high-octane than the original series, with death-defying missions and perilously high stakes. That would lean into the hard-hitting action moves that we already know Katrina Law excels at, and it would also give the franchise a nice shot of adrenaline.

But there's another big reason we wouldn't mind seeing Knight get her own show...

Jessica Knight's personal life is at a big crossroads right now on "NCIS." She had a romance with medical examiner Jimmy Palmer that ended a couple seasons back, and the show has been hinting lately that there may be a spark between her and fellow agent Nick Torres — even though Nick and Jimmy are close friends, and even though Nick briefly dated Knight's sister Robin.

In short, it's kind of a mess, and rather than pushing Knight into a relationship with another team member, it might be better to just give her a clean slate, romantically speaking, and let her move onto a new series where she can find some new prospects. (Hey, maybe even someone she doesn't work with!) Plus, a new series would give us a chance to learn more about Knight's backstory. We know she was raised by a single dad who was also in NCIS, and she had a complicated relationship with her mom, and her sister Robin has a tendency to rush into relationships. These are all storytelling avenues we could explore in a new series, to let Knight develop into a three-dimensional main character.

So if we had to choose one current "NCIS" character to hand a spin-off to, we'd go with Jessica Knight. But what do you think? Let us know what you think of our pitch — and who else you think deserves a spin-off — in the comments below.