It would be nice to imagine a blood tie between rival TV franchises "Law & Order" and "NCIS," but unfortunately the link is in the name alone.

Mark Harmon (who until very recently played Gibbs on "NCIS") and Angie Harmon (who previously played Assistant District Attorney Abbie Carmichael on "Law & Order") are not related. And despite being high-profile, bankable TV stars at the same time, they haven't even done a project together -- not really, anyway.

They did both appear in the same "Stand Up to Cancer" fundraising special in 2014, but the same can be said of just about everyone else in Hollywood, and there's no indication the two Harmons even brushed shoulders backstage.

They hail from different parts of the country, too. Angie is from Texas while Mark is a born-and-raised Californian.

Indeed, Mark was born into the business -- the son of '40s screen star Elyse Knox ("The Mummy's Tomb," 1942) and football star Tom Harmon.

Angie, meanwhile, broke into acting the way so many young women without Hollywood connections do -- through modeling. She started by winning Seventeen magazine's cover-model contest in 1987.

Her successful modeling career led straight to a starring role on the short-lived spinoff series "Baywatch Nights."

That led, a couple of years later, to her role on "Law & Order" and later to arguably her most famous role, as the Rizzoli half of beloved Boston crime-solvers "Rizzoli & Isles."

While we wait for Mark to announce his next move after leaving "NCIS," we already know about Angie's next project(s). It was announced in the summer that she has signed a development deal with Lifetime to direct, produce and star in multiple works.

The first one up is tentatively titled "Barstow" and will star Angie as a single mother whose dark past threatens to interrupt her new, quiet life.

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