What I’m Watching: NCIS

NCIS: Season 7, Episode 20 “Moonlighting” (B+)

It feels like ages since the last episode of this show aired. Apparently, it’s only been three weeks. Still, this season, however continually enjoyable it may be, does feel far more disjointed than past years. In a sense, the relative absence of Director Vance, often doing some moonlighting himself on the Los Angeles-based spin-off of this show, is a good thing since he doesn’t contribute nearly as much as Jenny, and before that the show’s director was only an infrequent guest star. Vance did actually have a bit of his own storyline towards the beginning of the season, but now he’s appearing less and less. I am thrilled that the heavily-bearded Agent Fornell is back, especially because it’s quite rare to have a show go for seven years and continue to feature the same recurring guest star. I love how Gibbs gives Fornell a hard time about his beard and makes jokes, since usually Gibbs is the butt of jokes made by a later regretful Tony. The whole setup of getting Gibbs to take a polygraph in this episode was fun, but of course it is cut short by the tragic recalling of his act of revenge directed against the murderer of his wife and daughter. The polygraph specialist’s appearance was entertaining, partially for the rise she got out of McGee but also for a few one-liners she spouted off herself. Among the best: “I’m not acting – I’m genuinely defensive” and “I was voted least likely to take a hint in high school,” followed by McGee’s dry reply of “really, I can’t imagine.”