Series Informed Likeability
My relationship with NCIS is like this: My television has set me up on a blind date saying "He's great guy. You're gonna love him. You have so much in common." I'm reluctant, but I turn up at the restaurant. Then NCIS enters. He's loud. He's stupid. He thinks he's charming and funny but all the while I'm looking at the exit and wondering if I could fake an epileptic seizure.
Gibbs isn't a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold. He's a Jerk. He's not a Military Maverick. He's a douche who doesn't listen to anyone in authority out of spite. He doesn't have brilliant deductive skills. He just decides who's guilty and not guilty and it turns out to be right. He doesn't have Ultimate Job Security so much as Joker Immunity.
And he's not alone. Tony is a sleaze with who belittles those smarter than him for no other reason than to be in the Guinness World Records book for the longest period of asshat-ery. Ziva isn't an action chick as much as a psychotic Middle Eastern stereotype. The Director is a strawfeminist made to show that all women should always defer male counterparts, no matter what their position of occupation and Mc Gee is wetter than a soggy cornflake.
However the worst is Abby. When will TV executives learn that putting people in unusual clothing does not make them zany or kooky. They need - say it with me folks - an actual real life personality to pull it off. Honestly it's like the writers once heard about this new cool goth thing that all the kids are into nowdays and decided to make a goth character out of elastic bands, glue and annoyingness. And the fact that the actress that plays her is almost forty makes her cutesy act pathetic and disturbing in equal amounts.
These characters seem to amble around fulfilling the same tired running gags in an attempt to be enjoyable. On occasion they go for story arc drama which is strangely disconcerting. Like a zombie trying to breastfeed. You know that act their core these characters are just archatypes with whimsical traits pasted on them. It's the only Live action series where I can reach Uncanny Valley.
To conclude I have a WMG. An episode of NCIS fell though a timewarp and inspired T.S. Elliot to write The Hollowmen. Listen to this line:
Shape without form, shade without colour,/Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Truer words, people, were never spoken.
Series A Crime Show with Ups and Downs
I agree and disagree.
First off the characters save the new director are very human and well written.Gibbs isn't a Jerk,he is one with a Heartof Gold and he's a great judge of character,plus considering what the guy has been through. But Mark Harmon is a terrible actor who makes everything Gibbs says sound wooden and lightweight.Any competent actor would do him justice Tony is a Jerkass but very funny,this actor does him justice I love how he's always referencing movies and makes a great comic relief. Ziva is great foil,and the actress is great,but doesn't look the part and the cliches of the Middle East are embarassing,but honestly Cate was better Mc Gee is a great character,by far the most human of the crew,and by far the nicest,but Sean Murray is a little wooden [but not horrible like Harmon or Rocky Carroll or especially Lauren Holly] but still pretty good at making the right Flat What faces. Abby and Ducky are the two best characters,the quirkiest but most developed and the actors do their characters the most justice [also Pauley Parrette as a degree in Forsenics]. The guest characters almost never can act,they might as well be in The Last Airbender
The characters are great,it's the plots that suck all of them save one occasional one have a Dead Marine and Gibbs is never wrong.Every time they go foreign Tony becomes an Eagleland Expy and the Americans always end outsmarting the others [see the Mexico and Israel epsiodes].The whole thing is so predictable
And the set is atrocious,it doesn't look like it's in Washington DC and they don't hide it well at all,Stillwater Pennsylvania looks like an LA suburb,and the egregious examples only get worse.
However the twists are usually pretty good,the two parters have great cliffhangers,and the acting [save Gibbs] is actually alright.
All and all it's run of the mill but at least it doesn't go overboard with the wacky promos like CSI.
I'd give it a 6/10
Series I Loved It
My mom watched NCIS before I did. The first episodes I watched of it, I watched with her.
There's a lot of negativity around this show, and I don't see why. The characters are original, endearing, and funny, and you really watch them grow throughout the series — especially Mc Gee. It's a very human show, one that reaches out to you; and the characters, while flawed, are human beings — that is, their flaws are human. Equal parts tragedy and comedy, this series has really grown into its own in its later seasons. I would definitely recommend it to all.
Series More ships than the US Navy
Something about NCIS seems to require the involvement of people's mothers, as I also started watching it because of mine. We both gave it up in the end because the interaction between the characters was just too silly. They would spend half their time squabbling like children, then Gibbs would come in and smack everyone around the head. It required much more than the suspension of disbelief required for nearly all cop series, given that most TV cops behave nothing like most real ones; it was just impossible to believe that any group of adults anywhere would behave like this. NCIS had/has some good plots, but to be honest I think a lot of its appeal lies in the rampant opportunities for shipping it creates. I can't think of another series of which I've ever thought - "Basically, more or less the entire cast is going to be fancied by someone or other. There's someone or some combination of people for practically every age, gender, sexual orientation and probably fetish for all I know." They should cut to the chase and just rename NCIS "Perverse Sexual Lust: The Series."