As FredH mentioned in his comment, in this particular case most of the gaps in NCIS correspond to political pre-emptions. However, even when there aren't these kinds of special things going on, most shows on the big networks have these kind of breaks. The reason is they are trying to make sure that they have shows for as many sweep periods as possible.
What is a "sweep period?"
In the Nielsen ratings system, there are four periods per year (November, February, May and July) when Nielsen does intensive viewer diaries in addition to the electronic metering. These diaries have a lot of impact on a shows ratings. Thus, networks want to make sure they have shows during these times. However, there are 34-35 weeks between late September (the traditional start of the network "season") and the end of May (to make sure that the May sweep is covered).
Since the average TV show only runs about 24 episodes these days (in the early days of TV it was closer to 30 but to save on costs most big 3 network series are only 22-24 today) that means that there are 10-11 weeks difference between the time they are trying to cover and the number of episodes they have to use. This is why there are breaks over the season. They usually group the episodes around the sweeps period and either fill in with other shows, movies, holiday specials, events, etc.
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