The dreaded day has arrived; NCIS aired it’s launch episode for the show’s spin-off, rumored to premiere this fall. There’s one piece of good news in all of this: we won’t know if it’s official until May 20th. So there’s still hope.
I’ll be honest with you: the latest episode, entitled “Legend” (the first of two parts), wasn’t a total wash. The hour still featured our favorite team of Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Tony (Michael Weatherly), Ziva (Cote de Pablo) and McGee (Sean Murray). And, for the most part, the episode was typical for the show: a winding, and sometimes confusing, case that only briefly brushed up against naval personnel. It’s what we’ve come to love about one of today’s most popular series.
The new characters could have been anyone that our crack team paired with on a case. The investigation required some undercover work, and while Tony and Ziva both have experience, its reasonable to assume that a professional team could do the job better. Fine. What offended me was that this group of undercover NCIS agents was being considered for their own series.
For starters, what’s the spin-off? I know that the vehicle comes in a number of forms, one of which is introducing new characters on an episode of an established show and then providing them with their own platform, ala NCIS itself (from JAG). But there was nothing to suggest that the new show would be an NCIS franchisee in any way, shape or form. The creators would have done better not to associate the two.
Secondly, the casting was just awful. Louise Lombard (Special Agent Lara Macy) did a worse job of hiding her British accent than Cote de Pablo does pretending to have an Israeli one (she’s Chilean). Peter Cambor (Operational Psychologist Nate Getz) had no place on the team, and kept on putting images of him on Notes from the Underbelly into my head. Daniela Ruah (Special Agent Kensi Blye) was neither here nor there, although she too sounded as if she were a foreigner trying to hide the fact (she is from New England….) Chris O’Donnell (Special Agent G. Callen) was just kind of embarrassing; to put it into perspective, he was better during his arc on Grey’s Anatomy. Ouch.
The one bright spot was LL Cool J (Special Agent Sam Hanna). I’ve enjoyed the hip-hop star’s acting since In the House, and on NCIS, he was nothing if not subtle (you thought I was going to say cool!) Mind you, this is in no way about race, but he reminded me of Shemar Moore from the early days of Criminal Minds: calm, introspective, and only obtrusive when he has something constructive to add. Otherwise he’s simply a solid team player who adds some much needed well-roundedness to the proceedings. LL Cool J is someone I wouldn’t mind seeing regularly on a show like NCIS.
With all of that, it’s difficult to judge a show based on one hour, especially when the conceit isn’t very clear; obviously Gibbs and company won’t be there to interact with going forward. What the spin-off will actually look and feel like is hard to tell. It could very well be a solid show about undercover cops in an obscure agency, the latter detail being part of what makes NCIS so interesting. We’ll get some more of them all next week, but unbiased judgment would really need to be reserved for a pure airing of the new show in the fall.
Even so, my take is as follows: because it tied itself to NCIS, this showcase needed to blow my mind in order to really grab my interest. Instead, it fell flat. The one thing of note from the episode was the expansion of the mystery behind Ziva’s past as a Mossad agent. I’m more curious to see where that’s going than I am about anything else that this episode introduced.
What say you?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 29, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
my biggest gripe would be that if NCIS has this “Special Ops” branch … then why haven’t we ever heard about it/them before? especially if they are as important as they seem to think they are.
I don’t mind the idea of the spin-off … but I don’t think it is really necessary to have.
*POST AUTHOR*
I was thinking along the same lines last night; if Gibbs and Macy have this deep history together, AND they work for the same agency, where’s she been all of this time?
Wow. So, I’m taking it that you didn’t like it.
I have to be completely honest and say that I think you and I watched completely different shows. In fact, and I say this respectfully, I think you’d prejudged this show from the onset (“The dreaded day has arrived…” is a pretty big clue).
I didn’t have any of the problems with Chris O’Donnell that you did. I don’t think they gave him a whole bunch to do, at least not a lot that was very deep… Just not enough time. The only thing I didn’t like was his transition to character… I think they were building to something thematically that didn’t happen.
I don’t think we saw enough of any of the other secondary characters to be able to tell what their characters are like.
Nor do I think that Gibbs and Macy have a long, storied history. Something happened 18 years ago, long before either were NCIS agents.
I get that they wanted to make this team different, not just ‘standard’ NCIS agents, working the same cases that the original team have. And if that means that they had to layer in a new branch we’d never heard of (A covert branch that half the team hadn’t heard of), then I can forgive them that conceit long enough to see if they can make it work.
I’m looking forward to next week, and how the case they are working will fold into Ziva’s story.
*POST AUTHOR*
I did go into the episode biased, but I actually hadn’t prejudged anything. I did assume the spin-off would tank, therefore to me, the dreaded day was the airing of said bad episode. However, had I enjoyed it? I would have been the first one to champion the new series. Why not? I love CBS procedurals (seriously).
I found Chris O’Donnell – super agent – to be too overly crafted for perfection. Too much or too little time, they tried too hard with him. With the rest of them, had all of the characters been neither here nor there, I would agree with you that they didn’t have an opportunity to shine. However, LL Cool J managed to stand out for me, so in comparison, the rest not making an impression ends up as a failure to me, as opposed to them just being unknown.
I got the impression that the Gibbs/Macy thing wasn’t one off 18 years ago, but rather started 18 years ago. Otherwise, how would Callen be mixed up in it?
The mistake here, for me, was the connection to NCIS. Had the connection not been made, and the series been simply a new one, that’s one thing. Instead, after seeing the job they did, I feel as if the creators merely exploited the popularity of NCIS. NCIS itself came about because JAG’s creators spent so much time researching that universe, they stumbled on something interesting that they felt their audiences might like. The NCIS spin-off is nothing more, in my eyes, than the audience of a successful show being taken advantage of.
All fair points. I still disagree that I really think that the history is probably going to be much ado about nothing, and only really 18 years ago. I mean, how much freaking history can one guy have? :)
As far as the spinoff question goes, this is much more comparable to CSI than JAG/NCIS, and that being said, I have more personal faith in this team than the other. I’ve never been a fan of any if the CSI’s, and consider how much I like actors like Jorja Fox, Emily Proctor, and Gary Sinese, that’s saying a lot.
NCIS is a great show for a lot of reasons, some that few barely notice. I don’t think that there’s a show on today that’s better at continuity. The characters are well rounded and mesh so well. I think its going to take more than two episodes of a backdoor pilot before I figure out if I’m going to like ‘Legend’ (placeholder name), but I didn’t see anything that turned me off last night.
Respectfully, “I did go into the episode biased” and “I did assume the spin-off would tank” both indicate your prejudgment. And it’s much more difficult to enjoy any show going into it with negative feelings or if you expect it to be cancelled/not picked up.
As you’ve said, we’ve only seen one of the two hours of these characters guest-starring in the parent series, not even their own pilot, so it’s a little early to be so broadly dismissive of a new show. Personally, it was Macy and Hanna’s characters I found least interesting. I don’t know the actors’ backgrounds and past performances that well, but they haven’t really done much yet on the show. Well, Hanna did use the multi-touch screen, but that just looked as ridiculous as when Tom Cruise did it.
There are hundreds if not thousands of NCIS agents, and I would bet that this OSP, specializing in undercover operations, doesn’t work with agents from other branch offices very often. Heck, their office is hidden in a warehouse/industrial district. Gibbs doesn’t like Macy, so it’s no more odd that he’s never mentioned her than not talking about his unnamed ex-wives, or Jenny or Mike before they were invented.
Callen is on friendly terms with both Gibbs and Macy, and knows the history between the two. That doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s been an ongoing thing for 18 years rather than a one-off.
*POST AUTHOR*
Well, not really, because there’s a pretty big difference between having an opinion about something going in (who doesn’t do that on a regular basis?), and predetermining your feelings about it. Sure, I could think something’s going to suck going in, but that doesn’t mean I won’t like it in the end. I come in with an opinion based on the information I’ve been provided with (think about each time you decide whether or not try a new show), and then base my final judgment on the hour that was. So too, here.
That being said, if this is greenlit I will end up watching it. My fear, though, is that this will be a Private Practice thing, and I’ll waste two years watching it before finally saying it’s just not worth my time.
Dorv, in terms of back-story, yes, it’s unreasonable to assume Gibbs goes way back with Macy, but I think that will be a crutch the creators are banking on using going forward; build a back-story between Gibbs and Macy, and apply Gibbs to new show as needed. Unfortunately, this time I don’t think it will end up being innocuous.
Ryan, just because the introduction of Macy and Gibbs’ story can be explained as easily as the wives, etc., that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like a cheap ploy to interest us in the new show. When these things are introduced in this way on a show like NCIS where, as Dorv says, continuity is usually solid, it smells of trickery. I just don’t like having shows think they’re pulling a fast one on us in getting us hooked. It means they think very little of us.
I keep… KEEP trying to drop Private Practice, but then they keep bringing in kickass guest stars.
*POST AUTHOR*
Jerry to George: “You should just do it like a Band-Aid. One motion! Right off!”
Fair enough. You just sounded really hostile in your review (“The dreaded day has arrived”), which made it seem that you went in expecting not to like it.
Of course everyone has an opinion of something going in (less so for me, as I knew almost nothing about the spinoff – even missing last week’s preview), but my point was that just from reading your own words, it seemed like your feelings were predetermined.
Perhaps the fault is in my perception, as sarcasm and tone of voice are difficult to convey exclusively with the written word, and I’ve often come off harsher than I intended online.
*POST AUTHOR*
No, you’re right. Like I said, I had an opinion going in, and in truth, a part of me was glad to have it reaffirmed.
I’m worried that the loser will be NCIS, if the spin-off takes some of their crew’s focus away, and I just don’t think that they deserve it. The network believes itself to be praising the show by creating a spin-off, but even Mark Harmon has voiced his concern over losing the focus of the writers/producers. If Gibbs is concerned…
That is cause for concern. Perhaps they could bring back Donald P. Bellisario to run Navy NCIS-OSP: Navy Criminal Investigative Service – Office of Special Projects – Navy (and make all the new characters more interesting) and keep everyone else on NCIS.
From TV gossip sites, it seems Mark Harmon is always concerned about something on his show. And frankly, I feel NCIS could use a few new junior writers to mix things up.
Just watched the ep. I didn’t know it was the back door pilot episode until I started watching. I disagree with just about everything in this review. But, I didn’t go in with preconceived ideas. If anything, I was looking forward to a spinoff of one of my favorite shows.
I liked Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J. Their characters were barely introduced, but I like the potential. Same with the Operational Psychologist (or whatever he was).
Not sure what the “anger” and it does seem like anger about the back story of Gibbs and Macy. Just about every character that has been introduced that has interacted with Gibbs had a back story with him. Some good some bad. I thought them having a past history together to meld in with the nature of the show.
While I am most interested in what is going on with Ziva- I am intrigued with this new show’s potential. Would I have watched if it wasn’t tied to NCIS, to be honest, maybe not. Will I watch it now- most definitely!
From a business sense, this crossover launch of the new series was brilliant. With new shows having problems finding an audience, why not introduce it through one of the top watched shows. Remember- TV is a business first.
JAG—-NCIS—-This new show! Unlike the CSI shows that are basically copies of each other, these JAG spin offs are expansions of a genre- military intrigue.
Looking forward to what the new show will bring. And, supposedly none of the characters from NCIS will be going to the new show. I hope that remains the case. But, hope for some future crossovers.