Gibbs-related stories
Posted Nov 11th 2009 1:12AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S07E07) People who don't watch
NCIS usually think the show is all about the military, all about forensics, all about criminal procedures, etc. Well, an episode like this is a perfect example of how character-driven the show actually is. Leon Vance has not been as interesting as the director of
NCIS as Jenny Shepherd was, but the look into his back-story we saw with this episode may be a game changer. For one thing, he has some wife.
But as much as the Vance story and his weird connection to Kai drove the show, it may be the sad sack McGee subplot that resonates. Poor probie. Tough luck, McGeek ... or McDigit, as Tony dubbed him. The redhead was a looker. Tony and Ziva were impressed. Oh well ... more after the jump.
Continue reading Review: NCIS - Endgame
Posted Nov 4th 2009 1:10AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S07E06) Any time
Muse Watson returns to
NCIS as Gibbs' mentor Mike Franks, there's usually something special in the works. Tonight's episode was no different.
With Franks involved in what looked like a heinous act of double murder, Jethro was thrust into the middle of what appeared to be an open-and-shut case.
Not so fast, Probie. The Kelly adrift with two dead bodies -- two ex-military men with ties to a private military operation -- was the first and biggest clue to the mystery.
Continue reading Review: NCIS - Outlaws and In-Laws
Posted Oct 31st 2009 8:17AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, NCIS, Casting, Reality-Free
One of my favorite actresses is joining the cast of America's most watched drama series. That means about 20 million viewers a week will get to see her in action. The actress is
Rena Sofer and she's been cast on NCIS as a hard-nosed, no-nonsense lawyer. The role could be long term or recurring, they're not saying yet.
In fact, they're not giving much away at all. Not even the character's name or when she starts. Thus far, it's hard to see where a lawyer would be needed in the current storylines, so it's likely that there's an arc on the way that will bring her along as a key element.
Rena has a load of primetime experience, having appeared on
Heroes, 24, Couples, Blind Justice, Just Shoot Me... but for me she was never better than when she was on
General Hospital as Lois Cerullo.
Continue reading Rena Sofer cast on NCIS
Posted Oct 21st 2009 1:32AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S07E05) Happy Halloween from your friends at
NCIS! There was definitely some creepy stuff going on with this case, and for the first time in weeks, the concentration of the show was strictly on the mystery. No Ziva flashbacks, no Gibbs questions about Mossad, no Vance at all. It was just about how a Marine recently back from Afghanistan wound up dead in his car on the night before Halloween.
Continue reading Review: NCIS - Code of Conduct
Posted Oct 14th 2009 12:28AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S07E04) First of all, let's get this out of the way quickly. This might be the best episode of the season. It was all character with just enough action to keep those who love gunfire happy. But most importantly, it cemented Ziva's place in the world of
NCIS (the show and the organization). For that reason alone, this was four stars all the way.
Mad Men is the kind of show where allusions are made and words have meanings that are not always readily apparent. It's a great show to watch, sometimes difficult to comprehend.
NCIS doesn't pretend to be poetic. It presents compelling, dynamic situations in which characters face tough decisions and loyalty is tested and burnished over time. And the words matter here, too.
Tonight the word was mishpocheh. It's Yiddish for family. Ziva used it in one scene referring to her mission on the freighter (the dead Marine was not mishpocheh), but it mattered more in a later scene with Gibbs. More on the complexities of the episode after the jump.
Continue reading NCIS: Good Cop, Bad Cop
Posted Sep 30th 2009 12:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S07E02) After
last week's action packed NCIS, you might think that tonight's episode would be more sedate. Not really. There was a gruesome murder scene at the open, and plenty of mystery involving a cop who was out for revenge, but all that was a backdrop for something far more interesting. Ziva's return to the fold. More after the jump.
Continue reading NCIS: Reunion
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 6:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Ratings, NCIS, Reality-Free
Over the summer, spoilers were leaked that the
NCIS season premiere would begin with a bang. They weren't kidding. Last night's show was a spine-tingling puzzle of an episode that unraveled scene by scene, building suspense to the ultimate -- satisfying -- conclusion. If you were thinking that, like last year, the team was going to be torn asunder after the way things ended with Ziva being returned to Israel, you were pleasantly surprised. More after the jump.
However, there's another story to report. The overnight ratings are in and the viewers have spoken. Twenty million of them!
The return of NCIS zoomed to the top of the ratings with 20 million viewers tuning in. That helped CBS launch
NCIS: Los Angeles, opening with 18 million, and also bolstered
The Good Wife with nearly 14 million. Any way you slice it, those are stellar numbers. The folk at the Black Rock must be dancing in the hallways.
Continue reading NCIS's big-time return on screen and in the ratings
Posted May 20th 2009 9:01AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, NCIS, Reality-Free
And so ends the sixth season of
NCIS. For some reason, I didn't think the show would even last one season, but sometimes a show just surprises you with how strong it does in the ratings. If anything, the show has gotten stronger as the years have gone on. It survived the departure of its creator and has hung around long enough to spawn a
spinoff this fall, with Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J. No name for that show yet. Any ideas? They'll probably think of something with an "NCIS" and a ":" in it.
Posted May 15th 2009 1:35PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Upfronts, Reality-Free
Next Wednesday, CBS will be announcing its schedule for the new season, and while rumors have swirled that
Cold Case or
Without A Trace might be on the chopping block -- despite good ratings -- one sure thing seems to be the spinoff from
NCIS.
Well, now that I've seen the two-part
NCIS episode that served as a pilot for the show, I'm hoping that CBS gives this new series a thumbs-down. I don't expect that to happen, but if it were my decision, I wouldn't dump a solid series with a loyal viewership like
Cold Case or
Without A Trace, for the hope of LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell's overly fussy, overly procedural
NCIS derivative step-child.
Continue reading Why CBS shouldn't pick up the NCIS spinoff
Posted Sep 24th 2008 12:05AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S06E01) All summer long,
NCIS fans have been simmering about how the team was broken up in
the season finale. It was bad enough that Jenny had died and a new director -- well, actually, the acting director -- was named to take her place, but then his first action was to reassign DiNozzo, McGee and David and give Gibbs three new agents. As the ads for
NCIS reminded us, "breaking up is hard to do."
Well, I'm relieved to report that the team may not be together, but they're still intact. It's not as confusing as it seems and if you watched tonight's return, it was clear that the powers that be knew what they were doing with the storyline. Picking up 126 days since the break up, you got the sense that Jethro was nearly as vexed about the changes as Abby, even though he was refraining from putting pictures and postcards on the bulletin board.
For more about how all the pieces of the puzzle have come together so that those that are scattered can still be whole, read after the jump.
Continue reading NCIS: Last Man Standing (season premiere)
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