“NCIS” Emmy For Your Consideration Ad

Here’s the NCIS Emmy “for your consideration” ad that appeared in the current issue of Emmy Magazine (Issue No. 3, 2011). It features cast members Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, David McCallum, Cote de Pablo, Pauley Perrette, Rocky Carroll, and Sean Murray.

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CBS Fall 2011 Promo Tease

Here’s a promo for CBS’ fall 2011 lineup – and one that was clearly done before it was announced that Laurence Fishburne was leaving CSI!


Please note: I am sorry, but this video is no longer available.




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NCIS “Jet Lag” High Flying Fun

Photos from CBS

The NCIS team had a case that actually centered in the air, not on the water, in “Jet Lag.” This was an excellent episode, maybe the best of the season so far. It featured an interesting crime and was also the first episode where I felt that there was some real chemistry between Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) that didn’t seemed forced or overdone. The pair had been in Paris (well, it looked like more of a phony backdrop than real Paris but that’s to be expected) to bring a witness, Nora Williams (Lily Rains), back to the US to testify against her employer, Ray Bolinger (Ryan Cutrona), the latter accused of extorting millions from the Navy. It seems, however, that there is a hit out on Nora, and one of the hit men, a naval petty officer, was found dead in his home, and Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon),working at NCIS with his team, comes to realize that there is more than one person out to make the hit on the airborne Nora. It seems that whoever makes the hit gets the big payoff.

My immediate guess for the hit man was the air marshal, but then I realized that was far too obvious, and when the team also zeroed in on the air marshal too quickly I knew I was wrong. It also helped that he was found dead in the bathroom, killed with a knitting needle. (I am left to wonder exactly how did someone get a knitting needle on a plane, especially these days with heightened security?)

Meanwhile, on the ground at home base, Gibbs and the team talk with Nora’s fiancé Daniel (David de Lautour) who is concerned about her safety and who also works for Bolinger. Gibbs also pushes the buttons of Bolinger, who continues to deny everything. Its when Nora goes into an allergic shock that the team realizes that a female flight attendant, who was also connected to the time that the petty officer was killed, is out for Nora. Ziva manages to disable the flight attendant in typical Ziva kick-ass fashion. One error that the agents made was when, at one point, they both left the side of the witness they were supposed to be protecting. Mind you, this wasn’t when Nora was actually first exposed to the allergen that disabled her, the contact began much earlier, but Tony and Ziva still should not have left her side at the same time.

It seems that with Nora alive to testify against Bolinger, her fiancé's underhanded dealings at the same company would also have been exposed, which is why he wanted her dead. Not only will Nora put away an embezzler, she also seems to have lost a fiancé at the same time. But the real mystery of the episode remains – did something happen between Tony and Ziva while in Paris? Before they left town, while at a small outside café, Tony made a comment to Ziva that she seemed to have slept well enough as she looked comfy enough. There seems to be a question of who slept on the couch – if anybody. When, at the end of the show, Tony tells McGee (Sean Murray) that he slept on the couch, Ziva asks why Tony just lied to McGee, and Tony counters by asking her why she lied to Nora about the same issue (Ziva telling Nora that Tony slept in the bed). With all the smiles and knowing glances between the two, we are left to wonder just what were the sleeping arrangements? It’s one of those issues that left viewers intentionally guessing. Tony also said he found his favorite picture, and pulls out a photograph of Ziva, saying it looks very French new wave. When Ziva says she thinks it would look better in black and white, the screen slips into its normal black and white mode as it always does when the segment opens or closes. It was an interesting touch.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable episode, with everyone playing a part in the case. The real mystery remains unsolved – what were Tony and Ziva’s sleeping arrangements in Paris and was a couch involved? I suspect that is likely one question that will continue to tease viewers in episodes to come.


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NCIS “Faith” The Sappy Christmas Episode

All photos from CBS

Christmas episodes always annoy me as they are often sappy and saccharine. It’s even worse when it is a Christmas episode for a crime show. NCIS (CBS) “Faith” lived up to all my preconceived notions. The combination gets even more odd when the case involves the death of a marine who converted from Christianity to the Muslim faith, the only thing that did not have a Christmas theme.

The murder itself is just a backdrop to all the personal NCIS Christmas issues going on, so let’s get it out of the way. When a murdered marine is discovered by two people stealing a Christmas tree out of the park, the NCIS team arrives to find that the marine was killed while praying, and he was nearly naked. At first, it seems like his father, a colonel turned preacher, had motive; then it seems his cheating wife had motive. In the end, it all pointed to his own brother, who felt his brother, by changing his faith, had humiliated his father. Such a dumb reason to kill someone, and frankly it was a relative boring crime and added nothing to the episode.

The big issue for the show was the arrival of Special Agent Jethro Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) father, Jackson Gibbs (Ralph Waite). Gibbs is always somewhat of an aloof, cold fish, so it is no surprise when he treats his father with the same demeanor. Things start off badly when his father arrives early, and Gibbs seems not to happy about it, in fact, he seems surprised his dad even showed up. When his father starts a fire in the fireplace but there seem to be problems with the flue, the fire department is called. (By the way, Ralph Waite also played Seely Booth’s father on “Bones” and he started a fire in the kitchen in his appearance on the show. Keep this guy away from matches!) Gibbs also tries to occupy his father by asking him to help make wooden toys to give away for Christmas. But things continue to get more testy with Gibbs and his dad, so Gibbs enlists the help of Dr. “Ducky” Mallard (David McCallum) to have an informal chat with Jackson to find out if there is something wrong with his father. Ducky tells Gibbs that he doesn’t think there is anything physically wrong with Jackson but thinks he may have suffered an emotional trauma. He suggest Gibbs makes some calls home. Gibbs later has a talk with his dad, telling him he knows what happened, and Jackson recounts how he shot and killed someone in his store while they were attempting to rob him and possibly do harm other store patrons. He’s never seen the face of someone that he killed, being in the military, he’s never had to look those he’s shot in the face.

Meanwhile, besides the murder, the rest of the team is more involved in Christmas issues, well, except Ziva (Cote de Pablo) who is Jewish. Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) is worried about finding the perfect gift for his “Secret Santa” gift exchange with Delores Bromstead (Kate Fuglei), who works in HR and seems to be a rather caustic person. But Tony finds out, by looking through her personnel file, that when she was eight all the girls in her neighborhood got a special kind of doll and she didn't. Now exactly what kind of personnel files they have there at NCIS I don’t know, but that seemed to be a strange piece of information to be in one. My only guess is that maybe the information was in some notes from some kind of psychological interview? Anyway, she opens this huge box and sees a huge doll, which to me looks a little bit like Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette). It brings a tear and a smile to the usually cranky Delores. I, on the other hand, am groaning.

Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) is helping with wish of Abby’s friend Carol’s (Meredith Eaton) nephew to have a satellite video connection so he can talk with his mom who is on a destroyer in the Indian Ocean. Despite all the security issues, it seems that McGee is able to easily make it happen. Another groan from me.

And Abby is just being Abby, dressing up a skeleton in a Santa suit, and baking gingerbread cookies that look like herself. Ziva refuses one, saying she will not "eat Abby." I groan again. Every now and then Abby’s immature behavior annoys me, and for some reason this was on of those times that her goofiness grated on me.

NCIS is one of those shows that I have watched for a long time and I am not always consistent in my opinion about the series. The show continues to grow in popularity, party because the cast is highly engaging. I give Harmon, Weatherly, and Paulette the credit here, that and the fact that American Idol doesn’t start up until January. The good thing is that NCIS has won many more viewers this season, and now with the spin off NCIS Los Angeles immediately following it, CBS may give Idol a run for its money this season. But I must admit that the cases themselves are uninspiring and frequently seem to be more of a backdrop for Gibbs’ crisp and cranky demeanor, Abby’s goofiness, DiNozzo’s wisecracks, McGee’s nerdiness, and Ziva’s continued lack of the grasp of simple colloquialisms. A prefect example of the latter is when Ziva, in a bar with Tony, refers to the patrons as (if I recall correctly) “red throats” and not “rednecks.” Ziva's been in the US long enough that he inability to pick up on these simple slang phrases makes me wonder how good of an agent can she really be?

This episode lived up to every expectation I had about Christmas episodes. It had a dull crime, predictable family issues, and forced Christmas storylines. I’m not being a grinch when I say if you missed it, you didn’t miss much.


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NCIS “Reunion” Boring Case, Ziva Reunites With Team

Photo from CBS

The one thing about NCIS (CBS) is that by the time the NCIS team has worked through a case, you find you really don’t care about the case at all. In fact, by the time the murder case was solved, I realized that I still wasn’t sure who did it and why, because I was so distracted by events surrounding Ziva’s (Cote de Pablo) return to the NCIS team and the dumbed down script. I also can’t tell you who the murderer was because I actually fell asleep watching the last five minutes of the show, that’s how disinterested and bored I became.

Ziva has always annoyed me, and every time she seems to be going off the show, I hope and pray that she doesn’t return. Of course, I know that this is not going to happen any time soon, seeing that the show seems to have gained in popularity over the last year and I can’t see anyone wanting to mess with that success. Still, after all the time she’s been in the United States, she still seems to talk like Commander Data from Star Trek The Next Generation, who couldn’t – or should I say “could not” - use contractions. This can get on anyone’s nerves after a while.

It seems that the NCIS team – that is, besides Special Agent Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) - is unable to function properly without Ziva. Special Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) behaves in such an immature and juvenile fashion, and Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) is so spineless, that Ziva’s replacement hands in her resignation after only working there a very short time. Yes, she has them pegged.

But the episode falls into silliness quickly when Abby (Pauley Perrette) berates Ziva and then welcomes her back all at the same time, in a scene that I found to be too staged and too overdone. I enjoy Abby but sometimes she seems like a total idiot, and this was one of those times. Likewise, the scene where DiNozzo has to go to the bathroom and Gibbs makes him hold it until Gibbs has the information he needs from Tony was probably one of the biggest scenery-chewing scenes in the history of the show. It was hard to watch, that’s how bad it was. Weatherly can really ham it up, and this time it was too much.

Another ridiculous scene was when Tony goes to meet a suspect and that guy is conveniently shot, then conveniently drives his car (he was already dead, which I guess makes it DWD – “driving while dead”), weaving around the street and then conveniently hits the phone booth where Tony was waiting to meet him. How did that car manage to drive all over and then hit the phone booth squarely where Tony was supposed to be is beyond me.

Ziva decides to approach Gibbs directly about returning to her job, walking right into his basement and….wait, how does Gibbs get those boats out of there?….she gives him a gift of a chisel and then talks to him about returning to the team. He tells her she has to convince NCIS Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), the man who rarely blinks. She meets with him and he is unsure of her loyalties so he makes her undergo psych testing. To make a long story short, she gets back on the team.

This episode seemed to be written to appeal to viewers in the 13-18 year old range. Maybe this is the demographic they are trying to grab, and if so, they did a bang up job. But the episodes of NCIS that I enjoy the most are those with a little less overacting and fewer scenes where the character such as Tony and Abby act like juveniles. This is one “reunion” that should have been avoided.

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NCIS “Truth or Consequences” Restores the NCIS Team

Photo from CBS

Season 7 of NCIS (CBS) opened with an episode titled “Truth or Consequences” which featured both truth AND consequence, plus a heavy dose of flashbacks. Let me go on record to say that flashback sequences are being used far too much in TV drama these days. For me, they are starting to lose their dramatic impact. (Maybe ABC has the right idea with their news series “FlashForward” since they will be going in the other direction.)

I have been a fan of NCIS for quite a while, but not a regular viewer at first. This series seemed to start hitting its stride in season 5, which I think was the first season after executive producer and show creator Donald P. Bellisario was ousted from the show. That was a good thing, as there were rumors that Bellisario was too controlling and creating too much friction with the cast, primarily with Mark Harmon (who I call “the franchise”).

In this new episode, Special Agent Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) is in Somalia, bound to a chair in an interrogation chamber. He’s been beaten badly, but his pretty white teeth look very intact. He seems to be in the same chair where we last left Ziva (Cote de Pablo) at the end of the sixth season. Tony is being injected with a truth serum and is questioned by the terrorist Saleem (Omid Abtahi) about his mission, who he is working with, NCIS, and Ziva. Tony tries to be evasive in his answers but eventually begins to spill some information. We also later see that McGee has also been captured and is laying, bound and also injured, on the floor.

It is this interrogation sequence with Tony that give us the flashbacks, as Tony recalls the previous months, that took place after Ziva did not return with the NCIS crew. Tony seems to have mixed feelings' he misses Ziva but tells his boss Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (who Tony referred to as a “functional mute”) that he and Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) want Gibbs to allow them to hire a replacement for Ziva. Gibbs gives them permission to do so, dumping all his applicant files on Tony. Of course, Tony is Tony and he only wants to hire a woman – which coincidentally happens to be the gender of all the applicants in the pile. While Tony is screening candidates in the only sexist way that Tony seems to know, he still is distracted by the fact that Ziva has never made any further contact with him or the team.

The issue gnaws at him, and Tony finally approaches Gibbs and wants permission to go find Ziva. They believed she went back to working for her father and Mossad, and they become worried when they hear that the ship she apparently was on was lost at sea. This is distressing to the team but they want to press on for answers. The seem to get a lead as to who was responsible when Abby (Pauley Perrette) helps Tony and McGee to make the connection on the ship’s manifest that will help them track the terrorists – it’s one personal item that the terrorist wanted: Caf-Pow, which also happens to be Abby’s favorite beverage. (I find myself wondering if someone will eventually market the stuff for real.) Gibbs convinces Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) – guy who I swear almost never blinks – to let them go after these terrorists.

When Tony spills the information to Saleem that the Caf-Pow was what led them to him, Saleem throws it to the ground. But he then brings in another captor who is wearing a hood, and sits the person down in front of Tony. When he removes the hood, it is Ziva, very much alive. Saleem asks them to chose – one them will live and one will die. But Tony tells Ziva that they have a plan. Later, when Saleem returns and holds a knife to Ziva, McGee makes his move and uses his body to knock Saleem off balance. When Saleem pulls a gun on McGee, Tony taunts him and saying that they basically have him where they want him. Saleem is doubtful since Tony is bound and has no weapon. Lucky for Tony, McGee, and Ziva, Gibbs is waiting from a perch outside, and she shoots and kills Saleem. This triggers a full assault on the camp, and the team is saved. (You expected something else?) They return to NCIS headquarters to the applause of the rest of the office.

While I felt the start of the episode was a little plodding (too much one on one with Tony and Saleem) and outcome of this episode was predictable, it was enjoyable. The weakness with NCIS is that I think it has focused far too long on middle-eastern terrorists, which becomes repetitive after a while. The episodes I enjoy most are those concentrating on actual naval crimes on their home soil, and less on terrorism cloak and dagger. The series strong point is it’s cast, which has characters that have well formed personalities and behaviors, and also have great chemistry. (I haven’t watched the NCIS LA episode as yet so I can’t comment yet on whether they have the beginnings of the same cast dynamics.) The writers also do a great job in coming up with the witty lines that fit in well with each character’s personality.

NCIS continues to gain in popularity and I’m happy that it is getting the attention it deserves. This episode was a good start to the season and I’m glad they have the team back together again.


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NCIS “Hide and Seek” Finds Fun In Crime

All photos CBS

Unlike last week’s episode of NCIS (CBS) “Knockout“, this week’s episode, “Hide and Seek” was light and it moved well. When NCIS highlights the core team and each person’s idiosyncrasies, this show is great fun to watch. And that is what part of the problem with “Knockout “ was last week – it focused on an uninteresting case involving an uninteresting character, Director Vance (Rocky Carroll).

“Hide and Seek” involved a mother, living in naval base housing, who finds a gun in her son’s room. When the gun is turned in to NCIS, brain matter is discovered on it, leading the team to a murder. The case seems like a real stretch of an excuse to get NCIS involved, but it really is just a backdrop for the interaction between the team. Here’s what happened, and I have more comments about the episode after this brief recap.


The episode opens with McGee (Sean Murray) working hard to order a set of golf clubs on an on-line auction to replace the set he borrowed from Ducky that McGee damaged. Abby (Pauley Perrette) comes in and, as Gibbs would do, orders them to work on a case where a gun was found by a mother in her son’s room on a navy base. When they are reluctant to jump to it, Gibbs (Mark Harmon) comes in and confirms Abby’s orders.

The team investigates the case, starting with the kids who found the gun. The kids finally admit they found the gun next to a body in an open area. Despite McGee using his boy scout experience to help them find the body, the kids are dismayed when the body isn’t where they last saw it. After the kids leave, McGee and DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) work to find out to where the body was moved. Again, McGee’s boy scout training helps to locate it, despite the frequent ribbing from DiNozzo about McGee’s scouting prowess. Ducky (David McCallum) later IDs the body as Dylan Bates, and believes the time of death is about three weeks ago. He can narrow the time of death down by analyzing the insects on the body. Of course, Abby nurtures these bugs as if they were real children, to the point of playing classical music for them (which clearly Abby hates).

Abby later tells Gibbs and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) that she’s been able to track down who fired the weapon. She shows them a newspaper article about a postal worker getting shot, and said this gun was admitted as evidence in a trial four years ago. This was also an NCIS case, and they were the ones who had the gun in evidence. Later, they find that after the case, the gun was returned to its original order. Ziva find that the gun was sold to a man named Eddie Felson. DiNozzo, the movie buff, immediately recognizes the name of Fast Eddie Felson, a character from the classic Paul Newman movie, “The Hustler”. They realize the person is using a false identity, and DiNozzo, reviewing a bunch of photos of possible suspects he has, IDs the man as someone named Ronnie, who he had used the guns to rob some convenience stores. They bring Ronnie in, and he says he threw the gun in a store dumpster. By looking at security video footage, Ronnie’s story seems to pan out, but they also see someone who worked at the store who pulled the gun out of the dumpster. He’s identified as Joseph Ellis. Ellis is a Navy “brat” who couldn’t get into the Navy himself because of a criminal record. His accomplice in that crime was Dylan Bates.

McGee had also been trying to identify tire tracks found where Bates’ body was moved, and successfully finds the tracks belong to wagon tires. He confiscates as many wagons as he can find on the base (it seemed like a lot to me), and he and Abby find evidence of blood on one of them. The wagon belongs to Noah, one of the boys who originally found the gun and the body to begin with. They bring the boy in for questioning, Gibbs doing the honors. Gibbs calm, yet steely questioning gets the boy to admit that he killed Dylan because he was always picking on him and his friends and stealing their money. But Noah’s lack of details makes Gibbs not believe Noah’s story, and then Noah admits it was his father who killed Dylan.

They video conference with Noah’s father Mike, who is stationed elsewhere. He says despite his previous threat to Dylan, he didn’t do it. He only deployed early because he needed the money so he took a more hazardous assignment. Ducky then informs Gibbs that the blowflies on the body mean the time of death was 15 days ago, and Gibbs realizes Mike was already deployed for a few days when the murder occurred. They decide to hone in on Ellis but he can’t be located. They find that despite the fact that his mother had been deployed for a month, there have been calls made from her home on base within the last few weeks. Gibbs sends Ziva and DiNozzo to Ellis’ mother’s home, while Gibbs takes McGee to Noah’s home and ask Noah’s mother to talk to her daughter, Rebecca. Ziva and DiNozzo find Joey dead in his home, an apparent suicide. Back with Gibbs, Rebecca says Joey was her best friend and that Dylan convinced him to commit the robberies and do drugs. She talked to Joey about his life, but he decided to kill himself. She found his body, and took his gun to Dylan to show him how Joey killed himself and when Dylan grabbed the gun, it went off, killing him. Case closed.

Back at NCIS, DiNozzo thinks he’s pulled a fast one on McGee when DiNozzo wins an on-line auction for the golf clubs McGee needs to replace Ducky’s. When he offers them to McGee with an added $100 finders fee, DiNozzo is chagrined to find that he bought left handed clubs, and Ducky is right handed. He threatens that if McGee won’t buy the clubs anyway he’ll tell Ducky that McGee destroyed his clubs. Too late, as Ducky has overheard it all. Ducky gets his satisfaction when he tells McGee to recall an autographed, one of a kind jazz album that he borrowed from him. When McGee asks him, worriedly, what has happened to it, Ducky gets evasive and walks off as McGee looks very concerned.




I think this was a decent episode, but I do have some questions. Is it normal that the NCIS team would be called in to investigate a case of a gun found on a naval base, simply because they was brain matter on it? If there was no evidence that it was a military person who was killed, shouldn’t the police first take the case? How convenient is it that one of the people who found the gun and the body was the brother of the girl who killed the man? If Joey was her best friend, why did Rebecca just leave his body there in his home? Why wouldn’t she have called the police? Did they ever cover why she moved Joey’s body – assuming was her that moved it? I don’t recall them saying who moved the body but I could have missed it.

What made the episode good – and one of the reason why I like NCIS – is the interaction between the main characters. Sure, sometimes they go a little overboard with it, but when then get the mix just right, the show is very entertaining. No one does the simmering calm of Gibbs like Mark Harmon, but when he gets that playful twinkle in his eyes, it lights up the whole screen. He is very tolerant of Abby, yet he seems to care for her in a special way, unlike how he cares for the others on his team. It was great to see Abby back to her normal self – unlike the worried, overly concerned Abby we saw in too many episodes this season. It was cute when she decided to “play Gibbs” on a few occasions by giving orders to the team, with Gibbs showing some low-key delight with it. And there is nothing like a little friendly competition between DiNozzo and McGee, especially when DiNozzo gets burned by trying to pull a fast one on McGee. All in all, a very comfortable episode that, despite a crime that probably wasn’t worthy of an NCIS investigative team, provided a great backdrop for the fun.




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NCIS “Deliverance” Doesn’t Deliver

Image from CBS
This episode of NCIS (CBS) “’Deliverance” tried very hard to deliver a interesting story, but it quickly failed.

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his team gets called in to investigate a murdered Marine, who just so happens to have Gibbs’ Marine service number written near his body – in blood. But this causes Gibbs to become very secretive about the case, seeing that very few people knew his service number, and only one person knew it with a ”G” written at the end of it. It was a woman by the name of Rose Tamayo, who Gibbs encountered while he was working “black ops” in Columbia, and who also saved his life.

This gives Gibbs the excuse to bring in someone from his past, his friend and former mentor, Mike Franks (Muse Watson), who is the only other person that knew about this woman. In fact, Franks helped bring her to the US, and kept that a secret from Gibbs. It is at this point that the show begins to go downhill, with repeated flashbacks to Gibbs encounters with Rose. Adding to the mess is that it seems that Mike Franks, despite the fact that he doesn’t work with NCIS and has no current law enforcement credentials that I know of, is allowed to actively participate in the investigation and interrogations. The episode also worked hard to establish the thought that one of the murder suspects, Marine Private First Class Tomas Tamayo (Jesse Garcia), could have been the love child of Gibbs and the mysterious Rose. For me, since I am not very interested in Gibbs’ past – which the series has repeatedly tried to foist onto viewers – I am even less interested in such a clichéd plot device of having a child pop up from one’s past. Thankfully, at the end of the show, Gibbs confirms to Tomas that his mother was already pregnant when he first met her.

The show also continues to try hard to establish some sort of friction or mistrust between Gibbs’ boss NCIS Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), because after all, Gibbs can’t get along with anybody to whom he has to answer. It would be nice for a change to have Gibbs actually learn to work with people in authority, because he is starting to look a little bit like the spoiled brat who seems to either throw a tantrum or clam up when he is questioned about anything.

Taking a back seat in this episode was the rest of the NCIS team. Special Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) is having a conniption because Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murry) took and incomplete phone message, to which McGee seems to dedicate more time to getting the message completed than he seemed to spend on the murder case. DiNozzo and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) – who is still listed Mossad Liaison but when you think about it, why do we still need a Mossad Liaison? – help to investigate the case. It seems that DiNozzo brought David along as a bodyguard, seeing that she is able to disable two men to DiNozzo’s one. DiNozzo also spends too much time worrying about why Gibbs is so secretive about the case and the people involved that he is about the case itself. Abby (Pauley Perrette) spends most of her time trying to be quirky, and Ducky (David McCallum) actually seems to be – gasp – doing his job! The silliness of the whole case is made evident when a woman named Maggie Scott (Kari Coleman), who is Tomas’ guardian, and who was trying to help others in the area get away from gangs, is the one who was helping in the gun theft ring. It seems she felt she could only fight guns with more guns – that just by having more guns (no necessarily using them) would deter the violence. That made no sense to me. Later, Gibbs finally admits to Director Vance that the man he killed in Columbia was Tomas’s father. I still can't seem to care.

The bottom line is that when NCIS tries to bring in information or characters from Gibbs’ past, it’s an indicator that viewers are in for a weak story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am not completely and totally disinterested in the varying layers to Gibbs' back story, it’s just that so far, they haven’t seem to make any storyline associated with his past interesting enough to make me want to really care about it. Frankly, I think exploring the current personal life of the secretive and mysterious Gibbs could be far more interesting.

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NCIS and The Mentalist, and Why I Don’t Watch American Idol – Yet

I don’t watch American Idol when the season first starts. In the few times I had watched the show early on, I found the negativity overbearing and the bad singing intolerable. But there is another reason why I don’t bother. It’s because the media covers almost every single cringe worthy part of the show the next day. The show is covered in the newspapers, on the morning shows, on talk shows, everywhere. Why waste my time in spending two hours watching something that frankly isn’t entertaining to me?

I’d rather spend my time watching CBS’s NCIS (CBS) and even The Mentalist. I’m still on the fence on The Mentalist, and I admit that I haven’t watched last night’s episode - “Red Rum” – yet. The title alone made me think of poor little Danny in the Stephen King book and movie, whose little inner personality (Tony) kept saying “Redrum”, which read a “murder” when viewed in a mirror.

NCIS delivered a fine episode in ‘Broken Bird” – the story was a bit of a stretch mind you – but it gave David McCallum a chance to show his acting chops by playing the troubled Dr. “Ducky” Mallard. Ducky was carrying years of guilt with him about a death that occurred at his hands while he was in the military. Ducky also had just suffered injuries from a knife attack by a woman who also blamed Ducky for this same death. You just knew things were going to be OK for Ducky when a bird, which flew down his chimney into his home, turned out to have survived rather than died. I am very familiar with the omen about finding a dead bird in one’s home, which is supposed to mean that someone in the house will soon die. My mother told us about it after it happened when we were young and a bird got in the basement and my youngest sister died suddenly a few weeks later. Needless to say we were spooked. And when a starling somehow got into my basement a few years ago – we are still not sure how it got in, as the chimney damper was closed – I took great care to get the bird with a net and release it outside, very much alive. So when Ducky had a bird fly into his living room, and when he thought it had died, I felt a bit of foreboding for him. I was glad to see the bird was fine, just so I could get that silly old wives tale out of my head. But I digress. David McCallum is one of my favorites from years past – I just loved him when I was a kid watching The Man From Uncle – so I was glad to see him given such a central story line. I was also glad when Abby (Pauley Perette) finally seemed to acknowledge her overload with worrying about her teammates by taking a very subdued approach to Ducky’s dilemma. It’s almost like they heard my comments from last week.

I find that "reality" shows like American Idol just don’t offer enough brain stimulation for me, at least at this stage of the game, in order to warrant any investment of my time. When it gets down to the last 10 contestants or so, I will likely record the show so I can watch the performances and feedback segments only. I usually don’t watch it live until they are down to maybe the last 5 people or so. When if there is something better available, I’ll record AI on my DVR to zip past the boring parts. I’m a big music lover, and I just can’t tolerate cringe-worthy performances, much less Ryan Seacrest and the rest of the Idol panel.

So if you’re looking here for weekly American Idol commentary, this is one place where you won’t get it. There is already too much of it out there as it is.



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NCIS “Caged” Should Be Kept Locked Up

Last night’s episode of NCIS (CBS) , “Caged", got the NCIS crew out of their element as Agent McGee (Sean Murray) gets caught up in a women’s prison uprising. McGee was sent to the prison to obtain a confession from a woman, Celia Roberts (Martha Hackett), who had already been incarcerated there for two previous murders. As a third body was found – the murders long ago attributed to the woman - NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) wanted to tie up this last loose end so he could close the books on the case, which he originally investigated. Rather than send Agent DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) to a woman’s prison, and maybe not sure Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) was right for the task, he sends McGee in to do the job, and tells him not to come back without a signed confession.

While McGee is talking with Celia Roberts in a separate room, one of the guards gets murdered and the prisoners overtake the other guards. When McGee hears the commotion and checks it out, he’s taken hostage too. This pulls in the NCIS team, who seemed to be able to easily gain access to the prison, despite the prison being on lockdown.

Of course, the only one who can save the day is McGee, as he convinces the impromptu and uncoordinated group of women to use him as a hostage negotiator. If that wasn’t a stretch to begin with, things got even more unbelievable when McGee communicated the groups’ demands to the warden and to Agent Gibbs, and they just go ahead and agree with the demands. This included releasing all the other guards and visitors who were in the area at the time, and bringing in the NCIS team to help solve the murder. As the hostages are being released, the first thing that went through my mind is that no one seemed to be concerned that any of these people had any involvement in the murder. I would think that all the hostages and guards should have been taken to one separate area for questioning. And, as Gibbs seemed to be criticizing the warden for the warden’s lack of experience in these situations, I wondered why Gibbs thought that he and his own NCIS team could do a better job. I can’t recall any time where Gibbs handled a hostage situation like that, much less at a prison. Clearly Gibbs should have known not to just let all the hostages and visitors take off, but he seemed to miss that important step.

The episode continues to spiral downward as the team has to bring some of the prison guards back in for questioning as they suspected their involvement. And what is a prison storyline without drug smuggling? It seems the writers couldn’t resist adding the drug smuggling and drug use component to the story, making it even more trite.

Particularly annoying in this episode was Abby (Pauley Perrette). Usually I enjoy her antics, but for some reason, her panic over McGee’s situation seemed a little juvenile. In fact, I think that the character of Abby is getting to be a little too repetitive. While I would like Abby to retain her edginess and her quirkiness, sometimes I wish that they could develop her character past her current persona. It’s getting old.

Also not a surprise was Roberts taking the rap for not only the body they recently found, but for the murder of the guard. She didn’t want the real killer, a woman who was only in prison for one more year and had a daughter who the guard was abusing, to have to face the penalties. I could see that one coming from a mile away.

But the whole experience must have turned McGee into a real man, because when he got back, he laid down the law to his auto mechanic. Personally, I would worry a little bit about a field agent who couldn’t have spotted his mechanic trying to rip him off sooner.

This episode, while entertaining, was not one of NCIS’ best. Frankly, “Caged” should have just kept itself locked up.


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Tuesday Prime Time TV – So Much to Watch, So Little Time

As my moniker indicates, I like to watch TV. A lot. But I also like to have a life. It can be very time consuming to get into detailed commentary on every show I watch during prime time, and Tuesday night seems to be the toughest to tackle. Of course, I always have to do very detailed summaries of all the shows in the Law & Order franchise, which sometimes leaves me little time to cover some of the other great shows. The viewing crunch is very noticeable on Tuesday nights, where there is House, Fringe, NCIS, Without a Trace, and Law & Order SVU.

So to be able to have my say on these shows, I’m going to give some brief commentary on those that I think were the high – and low - points of the night.

Warning, Don't Touch The Rug!
House
First, let me cover the dog of the evening. I’m sorry to say that House may have just jumped the shark. Or, shall I say, grabbed a breast and THEN jumped the shark. This show took a horrible turn a few weeks ago in the episode ”Joy” where House (Hugh Laurie) and Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) shared a kiss, and then House agonized over it in ”The Itch.” I begged, I prayed that they wouldn’t go any further, but my pleas were not heard. To make matters worse, with the hostage crisis that occurred in last week’s episode, “Last Resort”, where Cuddy’s office was used to hold the hostages, she decides to take over House’s office while hers is being redecorated. Wearing clothes more fitting for a streetwalker (even House asks her why she’s dressed like that), she practically throws herself at House, setting the image of women in high management positions back another 20 years. My advice to Lisa Cuddy is to find someone much younger to get laid and give her a baby, and leave the rest of us alone. It’s embarrassing, frankly, and Hugh Laurie must be ashamed that he is even a part of this storyline. If he isn’t, he should be.


Fringe
Fringe is probably the best new show I’ve seen in a long time. It’s quirky, it’s got interesting story lines, and it’s got a great cast. Anna Torv, who plays Agent Olivia Dunham and Joshua Jackson play well off each other, although I admit at first I wasn’t too sure about Jackson. But the real star of the show is John Noble, who plays Dr. Walter Bishop, the mad, crazy, but likable scientist. Tuesday’s episode, “Safe” involved bank robberies to obtain some time travel equipment that Walter Bishop stashed away in safe deposit boxes years ago, and it leads to the escape of a psycho from a prison for psychos like him. It had the right amount of suspense, humor, and hints of a bigger story, and it can suck you right in. This is one show that is on my must watch list, and if you haven’t had a chance to see it, they will be re-airing it starting from the beginning on Fox each week until new episodes return in January. I encourage you to catch it.

NCIS
I just wrote about NCIS the other day (NCIS – The New Hot Property) and this week’s episode - “Road Kill” - was another solid show. It involved street fighting, which ended in murder by car crash. I found myself more interested in Tony DiNozzo’s (Michael Weatherly) air guitar techniques, though. The interaction with the cast is what keeps this show moving at a quick pace, and the hour flies by. Well, it could also be because I record it on my DVR and zip through all the commercials, but you get the picture. Even a crime show can work with the right amount of humor, and NCIS seems to get the balance just right.


Without A Trace
I admit, I haven’t finished watching this episode as yet. It was titled “Push Comes to Shove” where a hospital doctor disappears. I started to fall asleep during it. What’s bad about that is that I DVR the show and watch it the following day, so I really don’t have an excuse for falling asleep during the first 15 minutes show. I don’t think it’s a bad sign for the show itself, I just think that Anthony LaPaglia sometimes bores me into drowsiness, even when I watch him early in the day. I like Without a Trace but it needs…something.


Law & Order SVU
This week’s episode, PTSD, was about Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) going a little off the deep end as far as her post traumatic stress from her attack during an undercover operation 6 months ago. From the show previews, I expected an exaggerated emphasis on Hargitay during the episode, but have to admit that while she was central to the case, the episode was better than most of what we’ve seen of SVU for the season. Sure, there was no Chris Meloni in this episode, but since we’ve been force fed his family drama ad nauseam over the last several episodes, it suited me just fine that he wasn’t there with all his excess baggage. But, the SVU writing and producing teams need to watch that someone’s obvious desire to get an Emmy for either Hargitay or Meloni doesn’t make the show too soap opera-ish. It needs to take the lead from its Wednesday night “mothership” series, Law & Order, which is really putting out some great stuff lately, with DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) stirring the pot both inside his office and out. SVU also needs to cut their losses with Michaela McManus, as her acting skills are as wooden as a sequoia.



That’s it for this Tuesday’s viewing. Out of all the Tuesday shows, I think House needs the most help. If it continues with the House and Cuddy silliness, they may find themselves losing more of their precious demographic to NCIS. Someone needs to get House and Cuddy laid, but not with each other. Their sexual tension just isn’t pretty.


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NCIS – The New Hot Property

Last year about this time, I commented that NCIS seemed to be growing up a bit. Last April, I commented that CBS’s NCIS seemed to have ”jettisoned some of the juvenile banter” that frequently came out of the mouth of Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly). More recently, I’ve written here that NCIS is one of those shows that I’ve watched every week but I really don’t know why. The last two seasons, viewers had to tolerate bad acting and bad hair days from Lauren Holly, who played the ever-annoying Director Jenny Shepard. This tested even the most loyal of fans. Last season’s finale had the team being broken up and scattered al over the place. It’s an overused plot device for many shows when they want viewers to think their beloved stars are leaving the show, creating what I feel is artificial drama. Everyone knows a show would never intentionally get rid of a popular cast or character, especially when the cast has great chemistry and the show seems to be gaining viewership.

But, for some reason, NCIS this season seems to be climbing high in the ratings, much higher than it has before. Presumably it’s being discovered by many new viewers, who find themselves quickly hooked. For me, a person who has watched the show since about day 1 - sometimes to my own puzzlement - I can see why the show is becoming more popular. It has finally been tweaked to the point that it works really well. Sure, sometimes the story lines are weak and implausible. But it is the chemistry with the cast, and the personalities of the characters, that makes the show fun to watch.

In my opinion, the two big draws to the show are Mark Harmon, as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and Michael Weatherly, as Agent Tony DiNozzo. Both characters couldn’t be more opposite. Gibbs is frequently overly serious and almost all business, constantly keeping the crew in line, at the same time respecting the talents of his staff and colleagues and using their strengths to solve cases. On the flip side, DiNozzo is the comic relief, serving as a younger, more playful version of Law & Order’s Lennie Briscoe. DiNozzo uses his investigative talents and instincts, plus his love for movie trivia to crack a case and add levity. Everyone else on the cast, while all strong characters and actors, simply serve as the background scenery for Harmon and Weatherly. But don’t get me wrong, these other characters are very important to the show. What would the show be without the quirks of Abby (Pauley Perrette) and Ducky (David McCallum)? Probably boring.

But what is making this show work so much better this season is change at the top at NCIS: getting rid of Director Shepard and the boring, confusing story line that came with her. Instead, we now have NCIS Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), who is all business, just like Gibbs. Vance also seems to like pull strings and sometimes has his own agenda that he may not always share with his staff. It’s quite a refreshing change from Director Shepard, who seemed to dredge up her past relationship or romance with Gibbs every chance she got. And frankly, viewers were not interested in her past with Gibbs, which made those scenes even harder to tolerate.

Ziva (Cote de Pablo) and Tony also continue their veiled flirting. At least it has progressed from previous seasons where it was at the grade school level to something a little more realistic. Are they trying to create more sexual tension between these two so viewers will want them to have a deeper relationship? Probably. Do I want them to do any further? No. I think if those two changed their relationship to anything more than what it is now, it would ruin everything. Sometimes is better to leave well enough alone. If the show is smart, they’ll keep some distance in their relationship in order to keep the fans guessing.

Tony and Ziva

The only main character on the show who may be expendable is the sometimes-hapless Agent McGee (Sean Murray) who seems to be the odd man out. Don’t get me wrong, I like him on the show and I think he is perfect for role. It’s just that McGee is somewhat disconnected from everyone else, possibly because his job specialty and the fact that tech geeks could easily be replaced. Still, at this point in time, his presence as NCIS object of constant ridicule and a release for DiNozzo’s need for pranks is probably critical. After all, they do need someone to pick on!

I’m glad to see that the show is finally getting more attention from viewers. If you’re looking for a grittier crime drama like Law & Order or CSI, you won’t find that with NCIS. Sure, the show is about crime, but it’s really become about the relationships between the members of NCIS team, and the crime just happens to be the backdrop.



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NCIS Murder 2.0: Unbelievable 1.0

NCIS is one of those shows that I watch faithfully every week, but I’m not quite sure why. At least this season has been more enjoyable since they got rid of “Madame” Director. They’ve also seemed to tone down the immature banter between Tony and Ziva (Cote de Pablo), and, well, between Tony and anybody else for that matter. The chemistry between the cast members is very good, and that’s what makes the show so watchable. Now I’ll admit, I usually DVR the show to watch later, because I’d rather watch House.

In this episode of NCIS, “Murder 2.0", it seems that there is a serial killer on the lose. You know, with all the crime shows with story lines on serial killers, it seems like the country is flooded with them. I have never been a fan of serial killer themed shows because the stories are usually filled with trite plot contrivances. As in this one, the serial killer seems to have his/her eyes set on Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). I guess serial killers just like to taunt member of law enforcement.

The NCIS gang gets pulled into the investigation of a murder of a Navy Petty Officer. It turns out that someone left a message in his mouth that had only a web address on it. The web address led them to a video which gave them cryptic clues about the crime. While investigating the crime, they encounter a fledgling rock band to which the murder victim had belonged. The girl in the band, Rose Woodhouse (Naama Kates) makes eyes for Gibbs, much to the dismay of Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly). And, what a coincidence: Rose recognizes a place in one of the videos, and they find another body at the location with another message in its mouth with another web address and another video. Also on a tip from Rose, they track down a person who may have made the video, Sam Loomis (Max Gail) who indicates that he made videos like that for the band from a canned program off the internet. The one thing that is becoming clear is that to be a serial killer these days, you must have access to the internet.

Abby (Pauley Perrette) gets a scare put into her when she taps into a feed which shows that someone has video of her lab. But Agent McGee (Sean Murray) realizes it’s a live web camera and the killer may be right outside Abby’s lab door. Not to worry, though, it’s only the janitor, and someone planted a camera in his lunch box. This place has terrible security.

Based on all the video evidence, they believe the next murder will come at 5 minutes to midnight, and they decide to haul in Loomis, thinking he is the killer. But no, he’s not, and magically he dies in their custody at 5 minutes to midnight. Now that is one precise and crafty serial killer. And of course, it’s not Loomis because he is now dead.

To make a long story short, they think it’s Rose who is behind all this, and when they arrive at the garage where the band practices, she is holding a gun on her band partner Tommy Doyle (Patrick J. Adams), refusing to put it down. She looks panicked, and Gibbs correctly deduces that she’s not the killer; it’s her band mate Tommy that is making her do it. But wait! He’s wired her with C-4 explosive and he has the kill switch! But Gibbs talks him down, reminding him that he doesn’t want to die! Of course, the serial killer wants to be famous! And he thinks he made both he AND Gibbs household names! But, they rob him of his fame by having the media not release his name and Gibbs name as well. Oh, the drama...OK, just kidding.

Seriously now, this whole episode was just plain ludicrous. For a serial killer who made all these videos, set up all these web addresses, broke Navy security to plant a web camera, planned a man’s death – in custody no less – to the minute, and obtain and wire someone with C-4 explosives, he seemed incredibly stupid. Did he really think that Gibbs and the crew would just shoot Rose? And why was he so fixated on Gibbs? Maybe I missed something, but was it because Gibbs just happened to catch the case and Rose was smitten with him? Did it not matter who investigated the original case, he just wanted someone to taunt? And why must TV serial killers always seem to be fixated on taunting members of law enforcement? It seems like any serial killer that I’ve ever read about in the REAL world do their best to lay low and keep out of the eyes of the law. Why send law enforcement hints and clues to your crimes? I don’t get it. I suppose if serial killers didn’t do that for TV, then these agents and detectives would actually have to investigate a case using real evidence, and they wouldn't get solved so quickly.

This episode was not horrible, but it was not one of their best. Hopefully, we won’t ever get to Murder 2.1.




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Season Premier Hits and Misses

Quite a few shows had their season premiers this week. I’ve already written about CSI Miami (”Resurrection”) and CSI NY (”Veritas”) on this blog, but I thought I’d also give some attention to a few others that premiered this week. I also realized that I never turned on ABC for anything. At first I thought they didn’t have anything new, but then I realized that except for Lost, I don’t watch any ABC shows.

Law & Order SVU: “Trials”
I have a full recap for the season premier episode “Trials” on my blog All Things Law & Order. I also wanted to make note here that while the episode wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t anything special either. Most notable was the introduction of the new ADA Kim Grayleck (Michaela McManus). It was notable because it was awful. Her acting is wooden, maybe just a hair better than Elizabeth Rohm, who also played an ADA on Law & Order (the “mothership). It seems that they are making Grayleck purposefully annoying, portraying her as the competitive go-getter who thinks that she’s better than everyone else. It is made worse by her marginal acting. I hate to pass judgment so quickly, but you know what they say about first impressions...and my first impressions are usually right on target. I sense problems with McManus, hopefully the show won’t wait too long before they pull the plug on Grayleck.

The episode also continues to focus on the personal drama with Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Benson (Mariska Hargitay), and seems to put less emphasis on the actual crimes. It’s almost becoming a soap opera. I still like the characters, and the chemistry of the overall cast could be the best in the Law & Order franchise. But I would like to see more about the crimes and how they solve them, and less about things like Stabler’s troubled daughter and Olivia’s apparent post traumatic stress.

NCIS “Last Man Standing”

(NCIS Photos CBS)

The season premier of NCIS, “ Last Man Standing” picks up 126 days (according to the tally Abby (Pauley Perrette) was keeping) from the season finale when DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Ziva (Cote de Pablo), and McGee (Sean Murray) were banished to other jobs outside NCIS. While Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) kept his position at NCIS, he was saddled with a new, and inexperienced staff.

Ziva, now back to being a Mossad agent, is working undercover singing in a cabaret style bar, and gets caught in a terrorist’s explosion, McGee is relegated to a basement area where he is “boss” of his own computer tech team. DiNozzo is stuck on a Navy ship, begging to get out.

They also have a new NCIS Director, Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), who replaced the ever-annoying Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly), who is now dead and buried (so I hope - you know how TV shows like to bring people back from the dead).

While investigating a murder, it becomes necessary for Director Vance to clue in Gibbs to the fact that he had to transfer Gibbs' people away for them to help Vance work on a case. It seems that there is a leak within NCIS and Vance thinks that one of the three new people he put to work under Gibbs is the culprit. Vance was hoping that somehow Gibbs would be able to pick up that something was wrong with one of them, his magical radar would go off and he would start to investigate. Now really, I think that was the dumbest, most convoluted way to get to the bottom of a leak.

The bottom line is that it seemed obvious in the fact that the show would not work well without Ziva, McGee, and especially DiNozzo, and that they wouldn't leave these people out of the loop and of the show for long. As the show ends, it’s only DiNozzo who hasn’t officially returned to the NCIS home base. But we have to expect he will.

Also glaringly obvious was that it was the woman with the law background who was the leak. Yes, they tried hard to make it look like it was someone else, but not hard enough. Still, the episode seemed to work better than most, and I am not exactly sure why. It may have had something to do with the fact that Ziva, McGee, and DiNozzo were on the screen but not necessarily together. We got less of their usual juvenile banter. It also could be that Director Shepard is gone. While new Director Vance also seems to have his own quirks, at least he isn’t slobbering all over Gibbs like Jenny used to. So the premier gets good marks from me, and I hope the show keeps it up.

Without A Trace: “Closure”
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no happy men on television these days. They all have all kinds of “issues” and are filled with angst. The poster boy for “Troubled Male Leads” belongs to Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia). Every time he is on the screen, I feel like the life force is being sucked out of me. Malone is different from characters like House, for example, because House seems to actually have some sort of life and interests outside the confines of the hospital. Malone, however, seems like he lives and breathes the FBI, and not in a healthy way. Sure, he’s going through therapy, but it seems even his therapist (played by Linda Hunt) seems to want to run away from Malone every chance she gets.

The real drags on “Without A Trace” are the cases themselves. They seem the same every week. And so it was with the season premier, “Closure.” It was nothing new. Someone went missing, they investigated, they found them. This show needs more. According to ratings reports, it also needs viewers, as they dropped off significantly from last year’s season premier. It was probably due to the change in the day that the show airs. I don’t know why CBS keeps moving this show. This show either needs to get Malone on some happy pills, or they need to start feeding them to the writers.

ER: “Life After Death”
I haven’t watched ER regularly for quite some time. I may have only caught a few episodes last year when they went into reruns and nothing else was on. The season premier, “Life After Death” finishes off where the season finale left off – with an ambulance explosion. It seems that Dr. Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) was injured, although the extent wasn’t fully realized until they began working on him in the ER. Full disclosure here, I never like Pratt. Never. In fact, he was one of the characters that caused me to stop watching the show because I found him to not only be a terrible doctor, but just an all around annoying guy. So I wasn’t sorry when Pratt’s injuries proved to be fatal. The sad thing is, there isn’t much else redeeming in the episode or in the show’s cast that makes this show compelling. Too much time was spent on Pratt’s death, and on the mourning of his colleagues. Since all I recall is how much his colleagues hated to work with him, I almost found the Pratt tributes phony.

As far as the series is concerned, there is no drama left. It’s just a bunch of actors spewing out medical terms over a patient. This is being billed as ER’s final year, and that’s a good thing, because this show has been on life support for quite some time.

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The “I Like To Watch TV” Olympics

No, these aren't the Olympic rings!

No, this is not about the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which opened today, on 08-08-08. I mean my own Olympics, based popular TV shows. Here are some of the events that you won’t want to miss:

CSI Miami
The CSI Miami Scream: Participants much watch five episodes of CSI Miami and scream after every line that they think David Caruso gives that is scream-worthy. Unfortunately, there has never been a winner since all participants seem to be screaming the entire episode.

Horatio Caine Sunglasses Maneuvers: This competition is artistic, with participants vying to display the most flamboyant method of putting on, and taking off, one’s sunglasses.

Park the Hummer: Competitors must park a Hummer in a parking garage in a space fit for a compact car, without going over any of the parking space lines. Both skill and speed are measured.


Law & Order Franchise
The Doink Doink Challenge: Participants are given their choice of 5 household items, three musical instruments, 100 sound effects of their choice, and a recording studio, to attempt to recreate the Law & Order sound. The one who comes closest to the sound, wins. This competition started 3 years ago and no one has come close yet.

The Sam Waterston Eyebrow Lift: Thick, heavy eyebrows are placed on the competitors, and they are rated on how fast they can raise their eyebrows and yell “Your honor!” or “Objection!” within a set period of time.

The Ham Sandwich Sprint: Competitors are given a ham sandwich, the first one to indict one, wins. Note: The Ham sandwich must have meat in it.

The Elisabeth Rohm Scavenger Hunt: Viewers in this event much watch every Law & Order episode starring Elisabeth Rohm, and the one who finds the most scenes where Elisabeth actually can act, wins. Unfortunately, this competition goes on every year and no one has been able to find anything yet.

The Vincent D’Onofrio Scenery Chewing Competition: Participants star in an episode of Law & Order Criminal Intent, playing Robert Goren. The person who overacts the most, wins.


Other Shows
The Greg House Cane Run: Competitors run one mile with one leg up and tied behind them, and use a cane for support. The cane is partially sawed through. Speed is measured. If the cane breaks before the finish line is reached, the competitor is disqualified.

The Weather Channel Forecast Competition: Participants must pick the exact date, time, and place a hurricane, which is still forming in the Atlantic Ocean, will hit the United States. Those who predict incorrectly are forced to pay for the clean up of whatever area the hurricane did hit.

The Medical Examiner Exam: Medical examiners from shows like CSI, Law & Order, NCIS, etc. have to examine bodies while the bodies are in black body bags, and determine cause of death. CTs and X-Ray machines can’t be used. Competitors are measured on the number of bodies that can correctly diagnose within a set time period.

The Business Channel Stock Market Plunge: Talking heads from CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg invest $500,000 of their own money in 10 stocks for one week. Any participants that made money win, those that lost anything must jump off the Empire State Building, with no parachute or net.

The NCIS Juvenile and Sexist Remark Relay: Competitors are given 10 lines of normal, harmless dialog and must come up with a juvenile or sexist comeback for each one. The one with the most and best comebacks is immediately sent back to grade school to grow up.

The National News Headline Challenge: Network news anchors fist-fight over the top story of the day. The winner gets to cover the story on their national newscast. The losers are forced to take jobs in small cities and are never heard from again.

The Morning Show Wake Up Call: Hosts of national network morning shows are forced to interview someone who only gives one word responses. The person who is able to get the most responses in five minutes from the interviewee that isn’t “yes”, “no”, or “absolutely.” wins.


Have fun with the competition, and good luck!


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NCIS: Judgment Day Shakeup

Photos CBS

Well, never in the history of television have I been so thrilled over a main character’s death. In the case of NCIS, it’s the death of "Madame" Director, Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly). In my blog entry for April 16 (here) I hoped it would be her, but since the buzz on the season finale “Judgment Day (Part 1 & 2)” was supposed to have some major death that would change NCIS forever, I assumed it wouldn’t be her, because I just didn’t think her death would have that kind of impact on the show. I’m so glad that they jettisoned this character – and Lauren Holly with it – because she just annoyed the living daylights out of me. Maybe now we won’t be forced to endure one of the most uninteresting story arcs out there involving “The Frog, AKA La Grenouille”. It was overly confusing, it was complicated, it was just a story line that didn’t connect. It may have been the show’s attempt to have a story arc that spanned several episodes to build interest, as many crime procedurals seem to be trying to do these days. It just didn't work. One thing that was missing from that story arc that is very important - that is, if you want viewers to be drawn in and want to watch more - is that viewers have to CARE about the people involved. In the case of Jenny Shepard, I could have cared less about her past and her inner demons. My opinion is there were a lot of other viewers out there like me, and there was probably mass cheering when Jenny’s body was discovered.

During this two-part episode, it becomes evident that NCIS Asst. Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) will be here to stay for a while. While the death of Jenny is being investigated by Vance, and also by Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his team, it is clear that the team doesn’t trust Vance, and they don't trust him. As Vance tries to find out the identity of the mystery person present at the shooting at the diner where Jenny was killed, Gibbs works just as hard to cover up that it was his long time colleague, Mike Franks (Muse Watson). It plays out in a typical NCIS way: Gibbs does his own thing, while his team is caught between helping him and helping Vance. All the while we see Dinozzo (Michael Weatherly) get snippy, Ducky (David McCallum) muse over the events, Abby (Pauley Perrette) have an emotional breakdown, McGee (Sean Murray) magically find the needed information, and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) trying to smack some sense into Dinozzo. It was all horribly predictable.

While Vance is trying to have Mike Franks stopped at the Mexican border, he discovers Mike is one step ahead of him and has recovered the file that is supposed to be the “insurance policy” hidden by the original murder victim that started this whole thing, William Decker.

Gibbs, meanwhile, has gone to Jenny’s home, looking for information and then eventually waiting for the mystery woman who has a connection to the original case that Jenny and Jethro worked on years ago. Apparently Jenny did not properly handle her assignment, which has now come back to haunt Gibbs. Snore. It seems like this show always tried to make such a big deal about Jenny and Jethro’s past when they worked together years ago, but I never seemed to care about the whole thing. It’s probably because I never really cared for Jenny, period.

The mystery woman - Natasha Lenkov (Kathleen Gati) – confronts Gibbs at Jenny’s home, and lucky for Gibbs, Mike Franks is waiting in the wings and shoots her. We later see Gibbs and Franks walking away from Jenny’s burning home, a fire they clearly started to cover up the body. I have major issues with this. First of all, by starting a fire of that nature, they endangered the lives and homes of the people who leaved nearby. This was reckless. It also seemed odd that Vance, who was determined to get to the bottom of Shepard’s death, was quick to help cover up everything. The normal response would be for him to have Gibbs' head, not to help perpetuate hiding the truth. But, it does give him an excuse for shaking up the NCIS team – well, for everyone except Ducky and Abby. Ziva’s liaison position is eliminated and she’s sent packing, McGee is transferred to cyber crimes, Dinozzo is reassigned to the USS Ronald Reagan, and Gibbs is told he’s getting a new team.

I suppose we are to think that this shakeup will change the show forever. Well, if that means that the first few episodes will mean that we’ll see how Gibbs works with a new team while the old team works from the periphery, I think this plot device has been used before for other shows. The most recent that comes to mind is Fox’s “House”, where, for different reasons, House gets a new diagnostic team, while the old team still hangs on. It really didn’t seem to help that show, seeing that viewership in “House” has dropped off. Sometimes it is not good to mess with a formula, or a cast, that works well. I am not sure how NCIS will quite pull this off, but I can’t imagine that they would relegate their core cast to minor players. Bottom line is that I am not buying in to what was billed as a shocking twist. In all honesty, Gibbs should have been fired, but that would mean that Vance would have to expose Jenny’s murder and all the events before it and after it.

The show also seems to be trying again to create a spark with Tony and Ziva. I’m honestly on the fence about these two. When Ziva came to the show, Tony was still acting like a juvenile and their banter was filled with silly, immature sexual innuendo. They seem to have downplayed that a bit, and the two seemed to have better chemistry. In this episode, they have Tony returning to his juvenile ways (photographing Ziva in her bikini), and it seems like they are trying to make Ziva present a more attractive image. At the same time, they try to make Ziva out to be the voice of reason and common sense, somewhat of a “ying” to Tony’s “yang.” It just does not work for me, and I think it is an error for them to try to put these two together in any other way that just close working colleagues.

NCIS is somewhat of an enigma to me. I like the chemistry between the characters, yet I also find the dialog sometimes very forced and predictable. Some of the characters seem to be falling into a rut, where they become flat, two-dimensional characters without depth. Worse yet, I don’t feel much attachment to many of them, and I admit that I am becoming bored with Gibbs and his angst. He is actually becoming somewhat of an annoyance, which is not a good thing, considering he is the star of the show.

Let’s hope, however they play out this shakeup, that maybe it will bring some new life to Leroy Jethro Gibbs.



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CSI, CSI Miami, Law & Order SVU Cast Shakeups

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Fans, still reeling from the writers' strike and a stunted season for many favorite shows, now see the axes start to fall. In my opinion, some are welcome changes, some are not.

Let me get the welcome change out. Adam Beach, who plays Detective Chester Lake on Law & Order SVU, will be leaving at the end of the season. I only wish he could have already left, or maybe never even started with the show at all. This was a serious case of terrible miscasting coupled with a very poorly conceptualized and poorly written character. While Beach has done good work in other efforts (“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”) he just did not fit here. And maybe, just maybe, Beaqch's leaving means we get more John Munch (Richard Belzer) who was horribly ignored this season.

Two changes were made that have me on the fence. The first is Diane Neal, who played ADA Casey Novak, also on Law & Order SVU. I didn’t like Diane in the role to start, and it seemed over her time with the show they tried to change her look a bit. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to harden her or soften her. Sometimes her character was there to protect the victim, sometimes she seemed to work for the defense, sometimes she just seemed downright incompetent. I think my problem was not so much with Neal as it was with Novak. But, I say this may be a good change for SVU in the long run. Let’s get a guy in there as ADA this time.

The other one where I’m on the fence is Khandi Alexander, who has played Medical Examiner Alexx Woods since the start of the show. I’ve always been put off a bit by her overly made up appearance and the sight of way too much cleavage for an ME. She seemed to tone it down a bit this season – not completely mind you but just enough to make me look at her as an actress and not just another CSI Miami piece of meat. TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello is reporting the word may be that a man may replace her. I say this is a good move for the show. The only question is how will David Caruso be able to share screen time with another man! Gasp! I will stay tuned to watch the fireworks. By the way, news reports indicate that Khandi is not leaving under happy terms.

The one that makes me sad is Gary Dourdan, from the “original recipe” CSI. I always liked Gary in his role of CSI Warrick Brown. I felt the show gave him a lot of attention in the early seasons with some great storylines, then seemed to have him fade into the background behind the omnipresent Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger). But, over the last few years Dourdan has been involved in some not so positive publicity, so I guess it’s no surprise he’s out.

Of course, quite some time ago it had been announced that Jesse L. Martin, who is Detective Ed Green on Law & Order, will serve up his last episode on April 23, and it looks like he’ll be the subject of the case. Jesse was a great find for the Law & Order franchise and he will be missed, but it sounds like he is on his way to bigger and better things, one of them the starring role in a movie about the life of Marvin Gaye, called “Sexual Healing.”

I expect that there will be more down the road. We already know that some major character from NCIS is supposed to exit the show in a dramatic fashion before this season ends. What other changes for other shows could be coming? All we can do is….stay tuned!


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