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"NCIS" may not be one of those cool shows that gets tons of press like "Gossip Girl" or "Grey's Anatomy." It doesn't have a revolving door of hip guest stars like "Ugly Betty" or "30 Rock." But "NCIS" has quietly become one of the most popular shows on television, frequently besting "Dancing With the Stars," and even managing to get a sizable audience against "American Idol," a show other networks do everything they can to steer clear of.

The military drama's recent ratings success is particularly unusual for a show that has been on the air for six seasons. By this point in a show's life its viewership has usually begun to falter, but, year over year, the little show that could has seen its ratings increase, climbing from a top-30 show to a top-20 show, and this season to a top-five show, averaging around 17 million weekly viewers.

"This show has always had a really solid core audience," executive producer Shane Brennan said during a recent phone interview. "And what we've managed to do over the last few years is bring new people to that." Part of bringing in that new audience has meant appealing to viewers on the East Coast and West Coast, not just Middle America, the part of the country where the show performs best. "Every story we follow has some connection to the Marine Corps or with the Navy," Brennan said. "But when I took over the show, the sense I got was that there was room for more emotion in the show, more character development." It's this character development that Brennan said has helped it climb in the ratings: "We're taking this group of people who the audience has grown to love and we're suddenly giving them more."

Brennan, an Australian, got his start as a writer on Aussie TV, where he worked for 20 years before landing a job as a producer on "CSI: Miami" in 2003. A few years later, he became co-executive producer of "NCIS," and when series creator Don Bellisario stepped down as show-runner at the end of last season (reportedly over a feud with star Mark Harmon), Brennan took over. Bellisario had long decreed that the show not focus on the emotional heart of its characters, but after his departure Brennan was able to move further in that direction. He said he got used to writing character development instead of action because of the minuscule budgets given to Australian television productions. "We had to have a lot of internal scenes that we could shoot onstage," he admitted. "We couldn't afford to go out and crash a car or set a building on fire."

Though the cast and crew were understandably apprehensive about the show's creator stepping down from day-to-day duties on the series (usually a bad sign for a show's creative direction), "NCIS" has been the exception. "When Shane came on the scene there was definitely a new approach to the show that has been fantastic," said Michael Weatherly, who plays Special Agent Tony DiNozzo on the show. "He's very strong with the choices he's making for each of our characters. When you change show-runners you never know what's going to happen."

One of the many relationships to move into the forefront has been the brotherly rapport between DiNozzo and Special Agent Timothy McGee, aka Probie, the show's resident computer expert. Sean Murray, who plays McGee, said that while he enjoys the action scenes and mystery-solving on the show, he has more fun doing the character-driven scenes. "The relationship stuff is what's fun to play," he said, particularly the scenes with Weatherly. "For all the hazing, there's a lot of love there."

The show's other differentiation point is its liberal use of humor. "It's always weird when I read about our show and it's a 'somber procedural' or a 'sober military drama,'" Weatherly said. "We're about as far away from somber and sober as you can get." Also, unlike other procedurals, "NCIS" doesn't go as deep into cases as some similar shows. "An audience is used to seeing a procedural where you've got a murder or a robbery or a crime being committed," Brennan said. "There isn't usually a lot of room for (a) the humor, and (b) the characters. It therefore makes 'NCIS,' a very different procedural."

"I think that's why 'The Mentalist' is working really well in the 9 o'clock slot," Weatherly said about the show that follows his -- a show that also mixes crime with humor. The freshman cop drama starring Simon Baker has become one of the season's few new hits.

But with the success of other crime-based programming comes added competition for newsy story lines. "At any one time, there may be several dozen writers all searching for a story," Brennan revealed, which often means one show must forgo a topic that another show has already begun working on. It's the studio executives who have to keep track of it all, he says, and who must ultimately break the news to producers during regular story line meetings. There are exceptions, of course. "We're doing a fight club episode at the moment," Brennan said. "'CSI' did a fight club, but theirs is very intense and we're just touching on it. We tend to be able to spin off slightly and do a more comic version of it or a more emotional version."

What seems like such a simple formula, mashing up the whodunit aspects of a crime drama with the character interplay of a nighttime soap, is a mix few shows have been able to get right. But for "NCIS," the results have yielded the kind of success networks dream about. Though it may be a difficult balance to achieve, Brennan said the concept is simple: "Whether you're 18 or 80, if you have a story that interests people they're going to watch it."