Cirrus@Austlit

Shane Brennan began his career as a newspaper journalist and an on-air television reporter for the ABC in Australia in the 1970s. By 1981, he had left journalism for work as a television script-writer. His work between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s includes scripts for such widely varied television programs as police drama Special Squad; television-studio drama Prime Time; young-adult drama about Australian multi-culturalism In Between; medical dramas A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors; sit-com All Together Now; Barron Entertainment's circus-based children's drama Clowning Around; Jonathan M. Shiff Productions' young-adult ecological science-fiction program Ocean Girl; the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) live-action/puppetry program Lift Off; and historical drama Banjo Paterson's 'The Man from Snowy River'.

From the mid-1990s, Brennan began seeking work on American cable programs, including the Australian-based but American-produced Flipper. As he notes in an interview for ScreenHub, '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.' Excluding Flipper, none of Brennan's scripts for American programs in this period are included on his public bibliographies.

Brennan continued to write for Australian programs into the early 2000s, including scripts for crime dramas Good Guys, Bad Guys, State Coroner, and Stingers; television movie Witch Hunt; ACTF children's program Crash Zone; American-produced/Australian-filmed fantasy The Lost World; and country-life drama McLeod's Daughters.

By around 2003, however, Brennan had become increasingly frustrated with Australian television production processes. He notes in his interview with ScreenHub that

'I'd had a couple of projects that hadn't got off the ground, for no apparent reason so I got very frustrated with it. One of the things that happened - another writer and I got a pilot script and I pitched it to the network and they read the script and they said no-one would ever want to do this. What makes you think anyone would want to watch a show like this? You guys should just stick to writing, why do you want to produce this kind of program? They basically just dismissed it out of hand.'

With a professional network already established in the United States, Brennan shifted countries permanently, and began writing for such programs as CSI: Miami, Summerland, and One Tree Hill. Following these programs, he became co-executive producer and then, the following year, executive producer/showrunner of naval crime dramas NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service and NCIS: Los Angeles, becoming the first Australian writer to showrun a network prime time drama series in the U.S. In 2007, Brennan achieved another first for an Australian writer when he successfully created NCIS: Los Angeles. He continued as show runner on both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles until 2011. In that time, NCIS  became the most watched scripted series on television in the U.S., with  NCIS: Los Angeles the second most watched series. In 2013, Brennan created King & Maxwell for cable broadcaster TNT. Brennan continued as executive producer/showrunner of NCIS: Los Angeles until 2016, when he returned to Australia and started Scripted Ink, a not for profit company aimed at revitalising the Australian television industry by funding Australian screenwriters for both television and film. 

Further References:

Keveney, Bill. 'Shane Brennan of 'NCIS': The Hardest-working Man in TV Biz'. USA Today. 22 Sep. 2009. (http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2009-09-21-brennan-ncis_N.htm) (Sighted: 12/9/2012)

Tiley, David. 'Shane Brennan: Showrunning NCIS, Remembering his Australian Roots.' ScreenHub. 19 Jan. 2011. (http://www.screenhub.com.au/news/shownewsarticleG.php?newsID=36048 (Sighted 12/9/2012)