NCIS – What happened again?

NCIS is without question an established juggernaut. I don’t know that it ever wasn’t highly rated, but certainly in recent years it’s been riding high as one of the most, if not the most watched show on television at any given point in time.

And yet I’m beginning to wonder … I haven’t really been thrilled by the show of late. Not that I’m disappointed in the episodes it’s churning out, but talk about cases that barely hold my interest. I’m not even sure I remember who-dun-it last night.

I’m okay with the show only really flexing its muscle when it comes to character development. But sometimes there’s barely any movement, which leaves us where exactly? Obviously the team is always a part of the episode, but their lives aren’t necessarily explored every week.

I was thankful that Tony was back to normal this time. The truth is that his going on as if nothing happened makes last episode stand out even more as odd, because not only did it come out of nowhere but it also seems to have left no lingering effects on Tony. So what was the point?

I’m surprised that Federal law enforcement agencies would have such a thing as comp time off in place of monetarily compensating agents for overtime. How could they not be working copious amounts of overtime? And therefore how could agents possibly take all the time off that they’d be due in that system, as Tony so rightly pointed out? It seems crazy.

By the way, I really liked the brief “murder mystery” thing that Tony did on the boat when he was talking to the passengers who’d been detained. That was fun.

I didn’t follow the theory that the dead guy had severed ties with his family when he’d become a Marine, that he’d turned his back on his family and the family business. Had they actually established that then fine, but how would one draw that conclusion based on the fact that he’d signed up to serve his country? Who’s to say he didn’t plan to serve his tour of duty, go to college, and then join the company? It might seem insignificant, but that premise was part of the starting point for the investigation. It made no sense to me, and it kind of surprised me that the team would make that huge a leap.

Plus, had he severed ties with the company he wouldn’t have been in the position to make any provisions in his will whatsoever that pertained to the company. Clearly he was the man in charge, and he would only have had that kind of authority if he was meant to return to run the company. I realize that popped up at the end, but it kind of shoots the theory that he turned his back on his family to hell.

I suppose I should mention the reappearance of Diane Neal as Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) Special Agent Abigail Borin … then again, she wasn’t very good, so why bother? I liked her blind date, Steve Melman. How could matchmaking friends — or others — lock them at sea on a blind date? Seems cruel to me.

Overall, not a great episode. In fact, season eight hasn’t been one of the better seasons of NCIS. But next week’s always a clean slate, right?

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 12, 2011 @ 13:30 EST5EDT