Papas abound on NCIS

Earlier this season it was Ralph Waite as Papa Gibbs; last week we enjoyed round two of Robert Wagner as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. … so I suppose we should have been expecting the return of Michael Nouri as Mossad Director Eli David sometime around now on NCIS. The better question is, when do we get to meet Mr. and Mrs. McGee?

As frightening as it is to contemplate in reality, the credit card swiper was very cool. Do you see what happens when ease of use starts to take precedence over safety? Many people would argue that credit cards should never leave your wallet period, but do we need the ability to simply wave our wallets over a scanner in order to pay for our purchases? I say take the new card with the embedded chip in it, and add the requirement that the owner’s fingerprint be on a pad on the card in order for it to be operational. Is that really such a burden on the consumer?

Anyway, I wasn’t impressed with the Mossad team, both the actors and the characters. Liat (Sarai Givaty) was a carbon-copy character who, as a result, never felt authentic. And Malachi (T.J. Ramini)? Talk about not being believable as an Israeli. I enjoyed Amit (Arnold Vosloo), but it’s tough accepting Vosloo as anyone other than terrorist Habib Marwan from the fourth season of 24 — he was that good there. Much more enjoyable was the sight of special guest star Michael O’Neill as Former NCIS Special Agent Riley McCallister, better known to me as Ron Butterfield from The West Wing. Too bad his time on screen was so brief, but funny reuniting Mark Harmon with his West Wing Secret Service boss.

All of that, however, is noise. The truth is that Director David’s visit was boring, and the directors’ meeting was confusing — what a weird time to try and resuscitate the old “Vance’s past” plot. It was somewhat intriguing when Gibbs started dabbling in it a season or two ago, but it’s so completely dropped off the radar that the meeting seemed just a thin excuse for bringing Eli David to town. Stupid? Absolutely.

I think NCIS is trying to have it all between the show’s characters and it’s weekly cases. There’s always been a healthy mix of character on the side of the one-and-dones, but the past few weeks the writers have attempted to incorporate character lives into the cases themselves, and I feel it’s been to disastrous results: DiNozzo Senior’s involvement in last week’s murder was a stretch at best, and Director David as this week’s case was awful.

Unfortunately the episode is “To Be Continued,” with the Mossad director disappearing in a cloud of smoke, Amit seemingly dead on the ground. Where’s Liat? One can only hope that, one way or another, she won’t be back either.

At the same time the continuation provides the opportunity to right a rickety ship. If next week’s hour mainly focuses on the mysteries in Vance’s file, I might be hooked right back in. I wasn’t a Vance fan from day one, but Gibbs’ interest in Vance’s background intrigues me … it would be fun to ride alongside Gibbs as he discovers who Vance is.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Nov 17, 2010 @ 10:03 EST5EDT