NCIS – Damned if you do

That was a little better, although the ending of NCIS season ten will not have me sleepless over the summer. My companion shook his head and said he didn’t quite get it. He also wondered if we’d strayed into Due South. I think being in a boat with someone dead makes it look as if we had. Someone you talk to and who talks back, I mean.

But it was good to have Mike Franks back, even as a dead guy in a boat.

What really doesn’t make sense is how the Directors of two agencies can take personal interest in one agency team, when they must have so much else to do.

Good to see them digging up someone from JAG. I liked him, despite not being a JAG viewer. He drinks tea, if nothing else.

Usually it’s September when we see what happened in the intervening four months. This time we made the jump to September, while it is still technically only May. Time travel?

And that thing we saw, or thought we saw, at the end? That’s bound not to happen. But they want us to worry all summer.

Quite liked the cabin in the woods.

NCIS – Extreme Prejudice

It was very sweet to have Gibbs looking around for Abby, sighing with relief when she appeared to be unhurt. But it was hardly necessary, or even realistic, seeing as he jumped on top of her to protect her in the explosion, ‘mere hours’ before. He’d know she was safe, unless he had squashed her in his role as shining white Special Agent.

Continuity, writers! If you knew how you wanted the season to start, why have Gibbs jump, back in May? If you didn’t, why not have a peep to see what did happen in the last episode? Or ask a fan?*

It was nice to be back, despite this and the dust and destruction. Gibbs had a most fetching injury to his forehead, whereas McGee was woozy and weird, and with much more reason. Ziva and DiNozzo were locked into yet another box. It’s getting a bit repetitive. Surely we can have them close by other means, if that’s what we want?

And if the President tells SecNav to get those who did this, they will. I suspect they would have, anyway. The end was strange. Could they really not come up with something a bit more convincing?

Ducky was all right, as far as all rightness was possible. Not sure what the new Mrs Palmer thought about Palmer spending all that time holding Ducky’s hand. Having Palmer do Ducky’s job, with not even an assistant at his side, feels very Hollywood. Since Brian Dietzen is a regular now, I’m guessing he’s taking over. He has had eight and a half years at Ducky’s side, so why not? But why not before?

I like the new intro. They look so very determined, and Ducky is there. Here’s looking forward to the rest of what will be a great season ten.

*Me, me!

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS beginnings and ends – Angel of Death, and Bury Your Dead

Hindsight makes me dislike more about season four than I noticed at the time. Probably because I didn’t actually like the Tony DiNardo disguise. I wasn’t dead keen on Jeanne, but hated the way she was being used, which once you know, is pretty upsetting if you watch again.

But, we are still talking good writing, and a strong end to one season and a very good start to the next one. Once you stop having qualms about Jeanne, that is.

We haven’t watched Angel of Death very often. I used to think it was a mixed up episode, and my co-watcher isn’t too keen on the druggie’s sister in the morgue. Well acted, but disgusting. Her boyfriend is deliciously clever and crooked and very Irish.

But the rest is pretty decent. The thread about the little girls on the loose in the hospital, who might be Shirley Temple, or not, is fun. Not so sure about leaving Gibbs in charge when the Director goes away. Why would he be? Nice cliff-hanger ending.

For a first episode, Bury Your Dead is one of the best. That car bomb is most effective. The way Abby and McGee have mirrored each other overnight, helping the Director and Gibbs respectively, works well.

I love McGee’s comment to Ziva about how his parents raised a gentleman while Ziva’s parents raised a killer. La Grenouille gets his come-uppance, but by now we almost like the man. Kort is as bad as we want him to be.

And overnight, Director Shepard’s hair grew a good few inches.

Funny that not one of them thought to comment on that.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS beginnings and ends – Bravo Yankee Echo to Kate

The end of NCIS season two and the beginning of season three are among the very best episodes, and among the hardest to watch. Even though we watched season two late, when we already knew how it would end, it still didn’t make it any easier, or even any more obvious what was going to happen.

So we knew Kate would die, but the way they set up smoke screens, pretending to kill DiNozzo with the plague, and then offering up snakes and bombs and the need to protect Gibbs, meant we were as confused as they wanted us to be. I saw an interview with Mark Harmon on the eve of the last episode, and he claimed not to know who was going to die. It could have been him. Or so he said.

Twilight is as strong an episode as any, and it stands the passage of time well. It’s still exciting to watch, despite us knowing how and who and why. That penultimate shot when we think Kate has died, quickly followed by the killshot is pretty good.

There is humour, despite the fear and the danger. That’s what makes NCIS; the plot as such might be mediocre, but the script and the dialogue is first class.

As for Kill Ari, I had to watch part one three times before I felt even vaguely normal. It’s the one that has affected me more than any other. Yet again it’s the strong writing which makes it what it is, more even than the acting, which is also fantastic.

The team are shattered in more ways than one, it is raining (it always rains when things are bad) and Gibbs is nice. DiNozzo is right, we don’t want a Gibbs who is too nice, but it was quite fun to see what a nice Gibbs might be like. He doubts his own abilities, while the rest of his team daydream about Kate, the way they each saw her.

They have Ari to chase, while fighting the FBI’s view of him as an ally, and Gibbs has his old partner return without warning as his new Director. Ziva turns up and confuses DiNozzo, and we have that priceless scene in Ducky’s Morgan, with the useless Gerald almost wrecking it.

You don’t often get a really bad bad guy who can also be as interesting and as charming and normal as Ari. We sense that he is ice cold and cruel, but there is still a sense of humour.

(Photo © CBS)

NCIS beginnings and ends – Reveille and See No Evil

Season one of NCIS ends fairly strongly, although you need hindsight to see where it might lead. There is the mirror effect at the end of season two, which you won’t know about if you watch in the right order.

Written by Donald Bellisario and featuring Ari for the second time, it’s strong and annoying at the same time. DiNozzo’s stupid fascination for the fake Swede is irritating, and I have never felt easy with Ducky’s description of the old case which upset Gibbs.

But Ari is good, and his relationship with Kate was always interesting. I keep wondering what would have happened if they’d lived.

Since this episode was shown not long before the start of season two, the cliffhanger wait was reduced. And there wasn’t even much of a cliffhanger, unless you’d got as worked up about Ari as Gibbs had.

Which is lucky, since See No Evil was pretty good, but had no real connection to Reveille.

My main problem with See No Evil, is that it can only be watched once, and work. When – or if – you watch it again and you know what happened, it loses all credibility, and the feelgood factor of how the team worked the rescue seems pointless.

It is also a little too sugary on ‘kid with disability.’ Fine, let her be both pretty and talented and courageous. But why be surprised?

This was the start of Kate and DiNozzo being mean to McGee, and I hated them through most of season two, because they went from almost normal (for television agents) to childish and petty.

But the heatwave and the air conditioning breaking down is used with great effect. Putting the computer in autopsy to keep it cool is a ‘cool’ move. Having two endings is also effective. First the obvious one, and then the real one. But as I said, you can only use that trick once.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS beginnings and ends – Yankee White

I’m doing a beginning-to-end survey of NCIS. It’s a tough job, but someone has to sacrifice their summer for such a worthy project. One summer isn’t long enough to watch every single episode while we wait for season ten, and since I had some issues with the ending of season nine, it seemed like a good idea to go back to old endings and see how they connect with their subsequent beginnings.

But first we need to deal with Yankee White, the 40 minutes that began my new life as a nerd. OK, there were the JAG episodes, but they almost don’t count.

It is all down to Donald Bellisario, whose writing of the first seasons is second to none and which made NCIS what it is. There may have been problems later, and maybe things weren’t perfect, but you can’t fault the writing.

There is much that makes Yankee White stand out. Although looking back, you see the discrepancy of Fornell and Gibbs meeting for the first time. But that’s OK. Also, Gibbs is not as Gibbsy as he became soon after. Nor is Abby fully formed. But the then Director is great, and DiNozzo is likeable. And Ducky is more assertive.

You can’t help but love a plot set on Air Force One, with a pretty passable George W Bush. Perhaps someone really should have thrown themselves in front of the President’s diet. The Secret Service come across less well than you’d expect, although that could have been intentional, I suppose.

Some shows need a few episodes to prove themselves. NCIS was loveable from the word go.

I’m still loving it, but they will need to pause and think about what they are doing. It doesn’t have to be Bellisario writing, but it does need to be someone else good. Changing backgrounds as happened with Gibbs and Fornell is also OK. But someone writing for season ten needs to know what happened in season five.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS – Life Before His Eyes or This is your wonderful life, Gibbs

It was too sad, too introspective, to be a 200th celebration. I’d been afraid of confusion and a rush to get through all those old and ‘new old’ characters for NCIS’s milestone episode no.200. That part was OK. It’s nice to see old friends, and foes, for that matter.

I loved the diner where Gibbs goes. Very classic sort of place and just suited to someone like him. It’s a lovely idea to find the people you care about all gathered somewhere like it. But it got confusing, keeping track of who was dead. And the question is, considering what Gibbs learned through meeting both the obvious people and some unexpected ones, will he remember his lesson and be happier in future?

Is a happy Gibbs a good thing?

There was no question but that ‘his people’ love him. But would they have, in this alternate world? What was Vance doing playing chess with Ari? And Jenny Shepard and Kate were far too cardboardy. I know why, but it was almost scary.

One day surely Gibbs will have to ask the girl masquerading as Kelly whether she really is his daughter. Is that daughter number three or four? Having the young Gibbs carrying on with his Marine colleague also felt slightly inappropriate.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to get back to normal next week. And after all that psychoanalysis Gibbs will be more than ready for another woman.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS – Short Fuse

Times have been busy at Witch Towers, and I’m only now getting round to some watched but not yet blogged-about episodes of season 8. Trying to keep track of what the Resident IT Consultant has watched or not is a major feat in itself but I think we can safely say it’s the threes, both of big brother NCIS and of LA.

Abby talked to the evidence, and she wore a great outfit. And was that the first use of ‘the duckpond’ for autopsy? She’s like me. She doesn’t work well with people hanging over her, so Palmer had to go.

Good thing he went, as he was needed to scratch Ducky’s nose.

DiNozzo fancied himself as cover boy for NCIS. As if that would ever happen!

But it was the sheer – and shared – domesticity of Gibbs and Fornell that carried this episode. Whether eating ‘atomic’ lamb curry on a two-for coupon, or Fornell’s home made pasta puttanesca, those two get on better together than they do with anyone else.

Gibbs doing the ironing in front of a western on television is quite something. Nice to see he has breakfast cereal in the house for when the lamb curry turns out to be as bad as it was supposed to be.

And, oh yes, there was a plotline in this episode, too. ‘Cute bomb tech’ as Michael Weatherly put it earlier, with exploding bombs and an FBI lover. But even the cover boy story was more fun. And that’s as it should be.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS – Ari’s back; or is he?

I started hallucinating motorbikes a while back. Then I went colourblind. Or more accurately, forgetful. I saw a red motorbike on my way to the cinema one day and thought of Ari in Reveille, the last episode of season one of NCIS. Then I thought that his bike was yellow, so began looking for a yellow motorbike, and found it.

And when I got home and re-watched Reveille the blasted motorbike turned out to have been red all the time. Or perhaps it changed while I wasn’t looking?

Something Daughter read on the upcoming season eight about someone bad returning, had us speculate whether they could ever bring Ari back. I explained to her about Bobby in Dallas and said everything is possible. Almost.

For a bad guy, Ari was very likeable. I’ve often disliked DiNozzo more than Ari. And he’s about the only bad guy I’ve found myself disagreeing with Gibbs over. (Though I did quite like the professional killer in Under Covers.) It’s clear that Kate liked Ari, despite everything. And Ducky did, too. There’s something refined about a ‘British’ accent. They don’t always have to be bad. Also, Ari was at the University of Edinburgh. That has to count for something.

(Photos © CBS)

NCIS – Moonlighting

Poor Palmer has commitment issues and can’t even put stickers in places. And he’s itching and scratching. The ‘sand mite might bite’, but it didn’t. Funny coincidence that Palmer was having his own PPD-style moment the same week I decided enough’s enough.

But he does have a girlfriend, which is more than can be said for McGee, and he should know better than to improve on the truth when it’s the polygraph lady who lusts after him. I do think poor Agent Grady is wrong for our Tim, but he should still be open about his reluctance. Abby is certainly totally honest in her obvious disapproval of her rival.

Gibbs had witness issues, reducing him to ‘simple-speak’ with the dudes, ‘words – use them – helpful words’. And ‘where are you thinking of clipping that thing’ to Agent Grady, when she got surprisingly intimate with a part of Gibbs’s trousers. But then she was voted ‘least likely to take a hint’ at school. Do Americans really have a category like that?

Quite a lot of fun words in interesting combinations this time; Ducky to Palmer ‘if you’ve finished your multispecies insensitivity’, and Director Vance to Agent Fornell (yay, he’s back!) re possible surveillance in the elevator ‘when we do, you’ll be the first to know’. And Vance to Gibbs ‘we all make mistakes and that’s why God invented knocking’. So true.

Moonlighting, which is what Agent Grady did, was one of those satisfyingly funny and family centred episodes, and sufficiently enjoyable almost to make up for the three week wait.

Almost. Don’t do it again, any time soon.

(Photos © CBS)