As you all might remember, we began writing a critique of the NCIS show in 2011, when so many of those who buy and read our suspense novels sought our opinion about the authenticity of the show. Since part of David’s twenty-seven-year career as a Federal Agent was with what is now known as NCIS and Diane was a Federal prosecutor, we decided to write about our opinions of each episode. We are a bit late writing a critique of Season 15 by two episodes. Over the past few seasons, our enthusiasm for the show has continued to diminish, partly because the writing declined and also because the characters we looked forward to each week began departing from the cast. To make matters worse, the producers replaced them with characters that didn’t fit into the team and even increased the number of team members, which led to a lack of cohesiveness.
As Season 15 approached, as we were traveling and researching our next thriller, we wondered if we would even bother watching anymore. We could see upon reading the season promos, that Gibbs is supposed to have a new love interest and the female actor doesn’t look like she is well cast for Mark Harmon. The preview for next week’s show revealed to us that Agent Quinn’s replacement will be another awkward character who won’t fit in. Also, a review of the shows ratings revealed about three million of their usual viewers felt as we did and they disappeared.
Tonight we watched ‘Exit Strategy’, which is obviously written to prepare viewers for Ducky’s departure, or nearly total departure as he is going to take a sabbatical to write a book about his lengthy career. That aspect of this episode was cleverly written and entertaining. The rest of the show was also well written and acted with the four Special Agents combining as a team to solve the case. It was fun to try to anticipate ‘who done it’ and unlike some of their past shows, this one was technically accurate. One of the detectives showed Agent Torres a ‘pen-cam’ while they were on a stakeout, which actually recorded the detective’s disappearance despite Torres throwing the spy device out of the car window as a joke. David did suspect the ‘suspect’ pretty early on, but Diane kept expecting a surprise. The ending scene provided a nice and unexpected twist.
Will we faithfully critique each show as we did the past seasons? This all depends on the quality of the episodes going forward. What do you think?
Be Blessed, Diane and David Munson
With Ducky now gone and Abby leaving at the end of the season Gibbs and Fornell are the only two left of the original NCIS cast. Of course I am assuming Fornell will make an appearance this season.
I didn’t watch last season (hubby has pretty much decided the only tv shows in our house will be news and golf) but saved all your emails just in case I had a chance to play catch up. Sounds like maybe I don’t even want to do that now.
Is David McCallum leaving the show? Do you know why Jennifer Esposito left? I agree that replacing one character with three was too much. And, now, Pauley Perrette is leaving. If the rumor holds that Mark Harmon leaves after Season 15, the show will definitely need to be cancelled.
Welcome Back! I knew you were getting disgusted with the NEW, NOT IMPROVED NCIS! I have always enjoyed reading your take on the NCIS weekly Shows. David McCallum has left the series =( but they didn’t kill him off which was a better way for him to leave! With Mark Harmon and Pauley Perrette leaving at season’s end it is a good time for the series to end with class! I hope the last episode ends WITHOUT a WMD hitting the NCIS Headquarters! Glad you decided to continue your reviews and insight to the NCIS programs. Thank you for your continuing NCIS reviews and your collection of books!
First all. agreed. though it seems that possibly some new writers have been brought on board and there is a semblance of improvement in the content , plot, and climax of the shows seemingly a little more plausible is the scripting. We saw last weeks episode but unfortunately we did not arrive home until after 9:30 last night so. I did watch my very last episode of NCIS new Orleans last night. After watching the show it has been reveled to me that there is no further need to watch this program which goes on my no show list. If you feel it is imperative to make one or the team members of NCISNO a lesbian then knock yourself out. I withdraw my support completely.
I stopped watching the show toward the end of 2015. I am not impressed with any of the current team members.
Buzz