NCIS Spoilers: Why Robert Wagner Won’t Return To CBS Show As Tony DiNozzo Sr.

NCIS spoilers tease that there are other reasons why Robert Wagner won’t return to NCIS as Tony DiNozzo Sr. besides his son and granddaughter and her mother being absent from the series. Wagner has appeared at least once in the past since Michael Weatherly, who played his son Tony DiNozzo Jr. left NCIS for his own CBS series Bull. The simple truth is Wagner is not filming because of his age and because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Wagner has not appeared for a couple of years, but even after Tony Jr. left he appeared at least once. Fans have been abuzz with questions as to whether it was due to ongoing cold case investigations into the death of his wife, Natalie Wood in 1981, of which many true crime programs and documentaries have popped up over the years. Of those, Wagner usually will not comment but NCIS producers Frank Cardea and Steven Binder have given the true explanation, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the late Natalie Wood and her death. Robert Wagner is now ninety-one years young, and he has even David McCallum beat in age. “Ducky” is eighty-seven, not too far behind Wagner, however.

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The NCIS producers and powers that be simply want to protect their actors who are senior citizens of advanced age because of the coronavirus pandemic. NCIS fans and the general public know that the older a person gets, the bigger of a toll that the virus can take should someone contract it. While David McCallum makes occasional “zoom” appearances on NCIS as the retired Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard and is still a member, although an unattached member of NCIS, Wagner has not simply because the senior DiNozzo simply has not had anything to update the team about the junior DiNozzo and granddaughter in their offscreen life in Paris recently. It’s not that scripts could not be written featuring Wagner, they just don’t want him to become ill and possibly die.

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Wagner has obviously kept in touch with producers Cardena and Binder, and they have verified that they would gladly write him into the show were it not for COVID-19. NCIS is actively filming but determined that the possible risk to his health is not worth his character’s return, even though he could possibly check-in via Zoom once in a while as DiNozzo Sr. similarly to Ducky. They did not go into that possibility, but it may just be that the elderly Wagner doesn’t want to film himself on a computer screen, and perhaps, like many elderly folks, he may just not be that tech-savvy.

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Cardena and Binder also noted that Wagner lives quite a distance from the studio. This could also be riskier for a man his age, and he may have different health conditions than McCallum – that noted, McCallum has not “zoomed” in for quite a while as Ducky either. NCIS: Los Angeles has similarly protected Linda Hunt, who films her remote scenes, which are few and far between as Henrietta Lange from her driveway. But she is a teenager at seventy-six compared to McCallum and Wagner! Mark Harmon, on the other hand, hasn’t even grazed his sixties yet although he’s close at fifty-nine. Cardena and Binder are anxious to have Robert Wagner back as a part of NCIS, even if only occasionally, and Wagner feels the same way, so once COVID is behind us, DiNozzo Sr. will likely be making some appearances to update fans on his family!

Stay tuned to NCIS, and keep checking NCIS spoilers frequently for all the latest news, updates, and developments!