Shane Brennan

Who is Shane Brennan?

Shane Brennan is an Australian writer and producer for television; more popularly known as the executive producer of the American CBS drama NCIS, as well as the creator of the NCIS spin-off series, NCIS: Los Angeles.

Brennan's other television credits include Special Squad, The Flying Doctors, All Together Now, State Coroner, Stingers, Flipper, CSI: Miami, and Summerland.

By 1981, Shane Brennan had abandoned journalism for television scriptwriting. He has early credits on Special Squad, Prime Time, In Between, Embassy, The Flying Doctors, Altogether Now and Ocean Girl.

From the mid Nineties he worked on American cable shows shot in Australia – of which Flipper is the only named example in IMDB. That gave him exposure, friends in the U.S. and an agent. As he said, "I started travelling backwards and forwards for about five years – usually four or five times a year, coming for two or three weeks at a time, doing lots and lots of meetings, all at my expense."

His agent encouraged him to try working full time in the United States, but he still had young children and a happy marriage. But he was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Australian television. "By 2003 I’d reached a point where I was incredibly disappointed with the networks, the network system in Australia," he said.