Although it is two weeks before Emily Wickersham's "NCIS" debut, she has already been promoted to series regular.
Wickersham is taking the place of Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) after her abrupt exit at the beginning of season 11. Wickersham's character, National Security Agency analyst Eleanor "Ellie" Bishop, is described as "a mysterious mixture of analytic brilliance, fierce determination and idealism," according to TVLine. She also specializes in international threat assessment and global preparation.
Bishop will be introduced to the show on the Nov. 19 episode, when it is discovered that SecNav was bugged during a confidential briefing, which was a security breach that Bishop predicted two years ago. She works with Gibbs and his team to help discover who is behind the spying.
Showrunner Gary Glasberg spoke about the new character to TVLine. "What drew me to Bishop is how she views the world. She looks at things in a global way - and that's true of personal lives as well as the work."
"She will shed some light on everybody, on who our people are, as well on the way that politics and terrorism and crimes are handled," he added. "She possesses an interesting mind, an intellectual, smart way to approach doing what this team does - not with kicks and punches and knocking down doors but by really thinking. She's very much a thinker."
Wickersham's other TV credits include episodes of FX's "The Bridge" and "The Sopranos."
On tonight's episode, "Better Angels," the team will argue about who should run an investigation.
The synopsis reads: "After Gibbs leaves mid-case to help his father reconnect with a former war pilot, Tony (Michael Weatherly) and McGee (Sean Murray) argue over who should run lead on the team's investigation into the murder of a Marine Sergeant, on NCIS, Tuesday, Nov. 5 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network."
Watch the promo for "Better Angels" below, which airs Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.