Yet you seem to keep watching it — Bile Fascination? That's not intended as a dig, by the way; I think your review would be a bit better rounded if you told us why you kept watching it, too.
I watched it for a couple of seasons. It was entertaining in a So Bad Its Good way for me, for a while, but eventually its repetitiveness got to be too much.
I hope you're not saying you found Abby unbelievable because Goths aren't supposed to be almost 40 ;) But yes, she acts like she's 25 at most; people can stay that way until much later in life, but there should be a bit more signs of experience, really
A brighter future for a darker age.
Oh don't worry I'm not easily offended. At least not over the internet.
I live in a family of six. That's why I watch it. My dad has long days at work and enjoys it so I just get over-ruled. And I don't mind Palmer and Ducky. If it was the Palmer and Ducky show, or say they were characters on another show like Bones (a show which has similar problems but on a hundreth of the scale) it would be pretty good. Unfortunatly they are stuck in a reality surrounded by the living dead.
And I totally agree with you on the goth at 40 thing. I mean I'm doing a creative writing degree and you see these people around, many of who are awesome. It's the fact she acts like a prepy teenager that makes me want to stab her in the eye.
Thinking about it, I stopped watching NCIS and Bones for similar reasons.
I guess what gets me about Abby is that the character could have been really cool, if they allowed her to be more than a caricature.
A brighter future for a darker age.
My issue is that the characters in Bones slowly Flanderised to their current position whereas the characters in NCIS have never had souls.
One question: does it really matter that the actress playing Abby is nearly 40? Abby isn't written as a 40-year-old, and she doesn't look like a 40-year old, so what does it matter what Pauley Perrette's age is?
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I'm pretty sure Abby was supposed to be annoying.
I've only ever seen the first season, so I can't comment on Ziva. I found Gibbs, Ducky and Abby okay, but Kate and Tony were such clichés and their exchanges bordered on cringe-inducing. Kate is like Samantha Carter in the earliest episodes of Stargate SG-1 when she had that one-note I'm-just-as-good-as-the-guys persona except Kate doesn't get Character Development. And as a counterpoint, they made Tony a sleazy chauvinist. Who thought this was a good idea?
Madrugada - I know it shouldn't but it does.
Dick Richardson - Then why do people react like she's cute? Why don't we ever here "Shut up Abby. The whole sleeping in a coffin thing is really stupid"?
76.105.228.53 - Not me. Didn't see much of Kate. After your description I'm glad I didn't.
Hi, Combo Breaker here. I LOVE NCIS and my favourite characters are Abby, Gibbs and Ducky in that order. I think Pauley Perrette is really entertaining, she's a CMOF machine, particularly when she tased the guy that tried to kidnap her so she couldn't testify at a trial. "Stop looking up my skirt!"
Hey, I love it, I think Abby's cool and so is Gibbs. I do agree about Tony though-he is such a jerk.
I like the show, but after a while Tony's treatment of Me Gee, Tony's sleaziness and Gibb's abuse has started to wear on me. Abby's a crapshoot for me. Some episodes I adore her while in others I don't. I adore Ducky and Palmer though.
This was a pretty entertaining review. I'd been hearing how great this show was all over the place so I tried watching it. Couldn't get into it. The characters did not appeal to me.
Ziva's awesome! I feel I have to add this, because she really, really is.
I have to agree with you totally when it comes to Gibbs, his character always seem to rub me the wrong way, I know I would hate to have to work under that guy.
Tony's treatment of Mc Gee leaves a lot to be desired.
At least Ducky and Palmer are good characters.
The show might be not to your taste but I'm glad that almost 20 mil. people week in, week out obviously disagree with you.
Great, thanks for sharing. While you're firmly entitled to your opinion, one has to wonder why you've watched more than three episodes of a show you clearly despise. No one, I assume, made you do it.
As I explained before my house is a democracy and other people in my family enjoy it.
I don't see why people complaining of Gibbs's "abuse" (of what, the system?) and that he gets away with it. The point of the character is that he gets his man, he gets away with it too, and he has some cake to eat, so calling it unrealistic is kind of Completely M Issing The Point of the show. If I wanted to watch a show where characters suffered because of their decisions in the workplace I'd be watching 24 (which, mind, I do).
That said, Ducky is a far more interesting character, in particular in later seasons despite the fact he doesn't get too much action and his Myth Arc, if any, is quite well overshadowed by the entire Tony affairs. His relationship with the newest assistant, "Autopsy Gremlin" Palmer is also interesting to see, as it has all the marks of excellent hands-on approach mentoring.
What bores of the show is the repetition of particular plot structures across seasons. Everything past Ep 20 every season is pretty much predictable (with the notable exception of S3) and the abuse of Narrowed Down To The Guy I Recognize and Idiot Ball makes the investigative aspects of the cases hardly enjoyable.
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?
^ Ah I see what you mean. Your saying that he's MEANT to get away with everything and abuse the system... tell me again why I like this character. I mean my gosh, you think in a post The Wire world we would have some freakin believabilty.
Yes, he is meant to be that good, if that's what upsets you. It's justified in that the setting needs it to work — the best person available in his position in the team handling the things the Navy Yard office has to handle, such as cyberwar, international cover ops and Pædo Hunts. Even SECNAV in-universe, IIRC, states (near the end of S6) that the reason why Gibbs isn't right out Director of NCIS is that he(Gibbs) wants (read: needs) someone to trust in that chair — the setting is consciously trying to avert Pointy Haired Boss. But it's failing from the other side.
Take Gibbs's in-universe Memetic Badass status as part of the Anthropic Principle of the work: it has to be there for it to work. It's not really 24 if the action doesn't transpire realtime across a long day or if Jack Bauer can't go yelling at people to get them to actually do stuff. It's not really Star Trek if they're not doing interstellar exploration or if Kirk doesn't Wall Bang Her an alien. It's not really NCIS if any cop capable of dishing out speeding tickets can operate the office or pull the carpet on an interagency plot to essentially countermand terrorism.
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?Leave a Comment:
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.