Finishing Up The Season: NCIS

I decided last fall that I would give up “NCIS” when I went abroad, mostly because it’s the only procedural drama I watch, and it’s really not worth keeping up with on a regular basis. When I returned home and realized the finale was soon to air, I decided I wanted to catch up. I sped through eleven episodes of the series over a few days to get up to speed, and I must say that this is not a show meant for being watched in marathon form. Catching up on “Desperate Housewives” over seven consecutive hours was fine, but “NCIS” just doesn’t offer enough continuity to make it appropriately engaging and exciting. It’s odd to me, since I know that the “Law & Order” series is presented almost exclusively (well, not quite) in endless back-to-back marathons. I guess the difference there is that the main characters aren’t as interesting, so the extremely varying cases will be, whereas achieving the balance between a central cast and their cases often compromises one of them – or both.

It’s hard to diagnose exactly what’s been off about the show this year. The main characters are all still pretty great, and the necessity of a spin-off episode to launch “NCIS: Los Angeles” didn’t even feel out of place, since it was incorporated into the show’s main continuing storyline. What struck me as very much peculiar was the show’s extensive focus on Israel. I suppose the presence of a Mossad liaison officer at NCIS never really made much sense, but the connections between Director Vance and Director David and the fact that a Mossad agent was operating so extensively on American territory didn’t make much sense. The most jarring thing is that the show went to the trouble of filming part of an episode in Tel Aviv, taking little advantage of its look or exteriors, and didn’t bother to hire a single Israeli actor to portray any one of the four Israeli characters prominently featured in this season (Rudolf Martin, who played Ari, also isn’t Israeli). It just makes it all feel terribly unreal, and all the more bizarre and unexplained. “NCIS” continually makes fun of the fact that no one seems to know about their agency, and I think the show’s rating success has gone to the writers’ heads. Gibbs is shocked that NCIS wasn’t invited to a card game with the FBI and the CIA, but he really shouldn’t be. Why is it that they have such a major relationship with Israel? It just doesn’t make a lick of sense. I’m not suggesting that Ziva depart the show, and I’m glad they left the door open for her coming back (I imagine she will). I just think the show would be better off keeping her in the United States, unless they plan on hiring some Israeli actors and explaining why it is that NCIS has so much to do with Israel. I’d love to see Israel featured prominently, but not like this.

The other main problem with this year was Director Vance. Alan Dale departed the show years ago to go play the most powerful character on every show imaginable (“Lost” is just one of the many), but he was a great initial director who Gibbs seemed to respect and who appeared to know what he was doing. Lauren Holly’s Jenny Shepard may have been a bit less effective but understandably more fun, especially in her interactions with Gibbs. Vance, by contrast, has nothing to offer. He’s a thorn in everyone’s side and doesn’t really get much done, plus he has some secrets buried that, if Gibbs and Jude Ciccolella’s Secretary of the Navy can dig enough up, could bury him. Rocky Carroll is one of the most monotone actors I’ve ever seen, who could be perfectly matched with Glenn Morshower (Aaron Pierce on “24”) in a contest for the least enthusiastic performance ever (I happen to like Morshower just fine, by the way, though maybe not as much after his annoying behavior this season). Gibbs certainly shouldn’t be the director, because as much as it’s fun to see Tony lead the team occasionally, Gibbs is perfect where he is. For next season, I’d like to see much, much less of Vance and far more of the team working together, fleshing out some of the relationships that haven’t been explored as fully yet, like Ziva and Abby. I imagine I’ll continue watching it in the fall unless the pilot season presents many exciting options.

Season finale: C+
Season grade: B-
Season MVP: Michael Weatherly