What NCIS Fans Still Don’t Get About Bishop

NCIS has been on forever, and at this point the team has changed so many times it shouldn’t even shock anyone anymore. People leave, new people walk in, the show keeps rolling.

And then Bishop happened.

When Ellie Bishop joined in Season 11, she didn’t come in as some bland “new agent” you forget a week later. She had her own thing right away — quirky, super sharp, and weirdly relatable. I still remember how she used to sit on the floor with files everywhere and somehow pull out connections nobody else saw. That version of Bishop was actually fun to watch.

But a lot of the backlash she got was never really about her.

It was about Ziva.

Ziva leaving wasn’t just “another character exit” for a lot of fans. She was a whole era of the show. So when Bishop showed up right after, some viewers didn’t give her a fair chance. They watched her like she was there to “replace” Ziva, even if the show didn’t exactly say it like that. And once fans decide you’re a replacement, everything you do gets judged harder.

That’s why you still see the same argument online. One person will be like, “I loved Bishop, she was smart and different.” And another person is like, “When we got Ellie, I almost stopped watching.” Same character, totally different reaction — and it usually depends on when you got hooked on NCIS.

If you’ve been watching since the early days, you’re attached to the originals and the classic era, and you probably felt Ziva’s exit way more. So anyone new coming into that slot was going to have a rough time, no matter what.

But if you started later, or if Bishop was part of the era you grew into, you’re more likely to just see her as Bishop — not a stand-in for someone else.

And the part that always makes me laugh is this: people can say she “did nothing” or “didn’t fit,” but she clearly made an impact. She became a big part of the team, she got real storylines, and even now, after she’s gone, fans are still debating her.

For a character some people swear they couldn’t stand… they sure never stopped talking about her.