Just when you thought it was safe to do crime on water, THR reports today that CBS has renewed its stupidly, transcendently successful procedural series NCIS for a 19th season on TV. Not only that, but the network has also roped star Mark Harmon—who has now spent 18 full years of his life playing a man answering to “Leroy Jethro” for nothing more than quiet recognition and the pleasures of a job well done, and also many millions of American dollars—to stay on with the series. Per THR, that wasn’t at all a done deal a few months back: Harmon had made it clear that 18 seasons of NCIS was probably good, for him, but was apparently convinced to resume negotiations after being told the network would likely kill the series if he left. And really, there was no way that Jeroy Lethro Gibbs was going to do that to his teammates, or to his audience, or to the fine folks at the USA Network. And so the negotiations began.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely clear whether CBS would bite at this particular wet apple, either: While NCIS remains literally the most successful scripted show on TV—football beats it, and American Idol used to, but that’s it—it’s also very expensive, thanks to the usual slate of long-term contracts that escalate salaries all over the place as a series ages. There’s also the fact that it’s not entirely clear whether CBS actually needs any more of the dang thing. There are currently 414 episodes (or 17-plus straight days, with commercials) of the series already extent, all of which do just fine, thanks, in syndication. People hate crime that happens in or near the ocean, is the lesson here. They hate it so, so much.
Anyway: NCIS is coming back. Which is as good a time as any for us to renew our plea to Donald P. Bellisario, the TV mega-producer who spun the series off from his also-ludicrously successful JAG: Please, for the love of god, Donald. Write an episode of NCIS where Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap (also a Bellisario production) leaps into Leroy Gibbs. You still probably have Scott Bakula on contract over at NCIS: New Orleans for a few more months! Please. It’s been a hard year. We need this.
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So, a couple of things. First, while they ARE Navy cops, I don’t think they’ve actually been on board a ship in several seasons. Most of their episodes take place in barren wastelands or forests of Los Angeles, Virginia. Hell, the number of episodes where the cast actually got dunked in the ocean is probably in the single digits. It ain’t Hawaii Five-O.Second, Bellisario was only involved in Seasons 1-4. He was having a hard time getting scripts on time, oftentimes not getting a final script until minutes before shooting, which is why Sasha Alexander left after Season 2 (which worked out for her since she then got cast in the far superior Rizzoli & Isles). Eventually, Harmon himself told CBS it was either him or Bellisario, and obviously CBS chose Harmon. Last I heard, Bellisario had sued CBS for royalty rights, but I have no idea where that went or if it is still ongoing.
They usually have at least 1 or 2 ship episodes a season, though I don’t think there has been one this year yet.I thought Sasha left because the workload of a 24-episode hour long drama was too much for her?
It was, and that workload was because of the scripts coming in super late. Because of the late scripts, shooting typically took 16 hours a day. Once Bellisario was canned, scripts started being finalized 10 days before shooting and the actual production became a lot smoother.
I think he aslo sued over the spin-offs that were created after his departure from NCIS. Something along the lines of them using his intellectual property to create new content etc. One of the two (I think LA) he is listed as a producer, even though he has never had anything to do with it, as part of an agreement to some of the issues in his suits.
NCIS at this point is just ‘comfort food’, but its still a decent watch. I wonder if LA is going to end? Only ever watched the pilot, never really got into it.
Well, they’re definitely in the “we need to shuffle the cast” mode. While the main 4 (Callen, Sam, Deeks, and Kensi) are still around, they’ve added a bunch of new cast members and the head honchos are basically a revolving door at this point.More than likely, like with OG with Harmon, LA will go on as long as O’Donnell and LL Cool J want to be on it.
Yeah, I think that LL and O’Donnell are firmly in that Gibbs category; you can get rid of any other cast member and the show will soldier on, but if they left it’d be over.I wonder what would happen if one of them, but not both, wanted to leave. Assuming the other didn’t just say “eh, not worth it without the other guy,” I think the network would probably keep it going.
I’ve only somewhat kept up with the latest season, but it really feels like they’re close to writing out Kensi and Deeks, or at least Kensi.
Callen, from a story standpoint, is probably the closest to leaving since the show is focusing so much on his new girlfriend, but I’m betting the show will still go for another 5 seasons at least. Both O’Donnell and Cool J seem very comfortable in their roles ATM.
I really thought they were going to write Deeks out when they had the subplot about the liaison arrangement with LAPD going away.
Nah. That was just so they didn’t feel forced to do a police brutality/BLM episode like SVU or Chicago PD did.
When he ended up successfully joining NCIS, I figured it was mostly a tacit acknowledgement that the whole LAPD angle had run its course, and it was easier to just make it no-longer-a-thing.
No, one of the writers confirmed in an interview that it was a response to the BLM protests.
Ah, cool, I didn’t see that. It makes perfect sense.
Just wondering since last I checked, OG was renewed but nothing on LA yet.
LA is continuing, NO is not.
At least it doesn’t give me the shits like Steak-umm.
It’s gotta come to an end at some point I guess. The New Orleans spinoff is ending after this season after all.
NCIS: NEW ORLEANS — great, the only one of these shows I actually like, is ending.Low ratings or the higher cost of shooting all on location in New Orleans?
I have no idea, I just know that it’s ending.
Probably a combination of both.
That’s my read, too. It’s the lowest-rated of the three, averaging ~1.5MM fewer viewers than NCIS: LA. And I read that being on-location added pretty significantly to the cost.Shooting on-location apparently surprised Bakula. I remember reading an interview not long after it debuted, and he said that when he took the job he was like “oh, cool, it’ll shoot in LA like the other two, I can just commute,” and then found out it was going to be in NOLA.
I also think they lost viewership when Lucas Black left the show, and they dealt with that by killing off his character. He has young kid(s) wanted to spend time with them, was offered the chance to come back into the Fast and Furious movies, so less work more money most likely too.
I could never get past the bad accents on NCIS: New Orleans. Bakula’s accent makes me want to drive a hot poker through my ears, and besides Lucas Black, who has an authentic Alabama accent, the rest of the cast either doesn’t try at all, or they have some corn-pone fake as fuck sounding accent.
I always wondered how accurate, or not, Scott Bakula’s N’awlins accent was…Wonder why they didn’t just have him speak normally, and pass off his lack of a local accent to the time he spent in the Navy?
That would’ve made perfect sense. They could’ve even made it a thing; when he was dealing with rivals/opponents/suspects who knew him growing up, giving him grief and saying he didn’t even sound like a native anymore.
That would’ve been great, Mr. Furious! And would’ve gotten around the issue of why Scott Bakula sounds “Vaudeville Suthrin’” rather than from New Orleans. At least in the short-lived show BROKEN BADGES, Miguel Ferrer made a real effort to sound like he was from New Orleans originally.
His character’s backstory was that he came from law enforcement, was a Jefferson Parish Deputy Sheriff, so lived in the area for most of his life other than NCIS field ops.
Yeah, I also think the character was based on an actual guy.
I’d heard that, VideoPgh, but then WTF is he doing in NCIS? Everybody who works for the real NCIS has to be ex-Navy and honorably discharged, so having a former Sheriff as a senior NCIS Agent makes zero sense…
I always wondered about that. The AF investigative group (OSI) is made up of active duty members (although they wear civvies, not uniforms.) So, I always wondered about NCIS, because some of those folks on the show were never in the Navy. IIRC (and it’s been a looong time since I watched the show) just Gibbs (unless new characters have been in the Navy. I haven’t watched it since before Ziva left.)
I thought the Field Agents like DiNozzo and McGee were ex-Navy, as were Jethro Gibbs and “Ducky “Mallard. Abby was support staff so she could be a civilian, and Ziva was (originally) NCIS’s liaison with Israel’s Mossad, although as more came out about her relationship with her country and her father (the head of the Mossad, I think?), Gibbs covered for her and put her on staff as a “consultant”.Guess I absorbed more NCIS than I thought….
I really didn’t think that DiNozzo and McGee (especially not McGee) were ever in the Navy. I knew Gibbs was. And I’m pretty sure Kate wasn’t ex-Navy, either. (I know she was working on Air Force One when Gibbs hired her.) Ziva was sent there to find out what was going on with the guy who killed Kate. He was a Mossad agent who went bad, but at the time the Israelis thought that the Americans were doing him wrong and she was supposed to find out what was going on with it. She did a lot of lying to Gibbs and the team in the beginning, but she killed Ari (I had to look up his name) who also happened to be her half brother in order to save Gibbs. That’s why Gibbs covered for her and got her on the team officially.I’m missing some details because it’s been a while since I watched any of that, but that’s the gist.
Actually, Gibbs is a Marine, not Navy. I’m pretty sure DiNozzo was only ever a Baltimore cop, never an actual military member. Neither Torres nor Bishop were ever in the Navy, with the former being an undercover cop and the latter a part of the NSA.
Isn’t that counter to the real NCIS, which I’m pretty sure I read has to be ex-Navy personnel for their Agents, if not their support staff?
Nope. The opposite. That’s why they’re called “Special Agents,” since they are considered civilians. Real NCIS agents don’t get to do stuff the show does, though. They only deal with stuff fully inside the Navy. Stuff like hunting down terrorists or investigating murders in random night clubs would get transferred to the FBI or local police.
You actually don’t have to have been in the Navy or Marines to be an Agent, you do though need a college degree. I had read that on Wikipedia, then followed up with the NCIS’ own website.
So I would assume if you were in law enforcement already, and wanted to apply, that would make you an attractive hire.
Gibbs was never Navy. He was a Marine. McGee’s actually the only character who was ex-Navy, and he was only in there for a few years.
My dad would probably disown me for saying this, but the Marines are part of the Navy, so close enough. I did, however, forget that McGee was ex-Navy. I totally remember seeing him in uniform now.
I think Bakula’s accent has gotten better . . . either that or I’ve just gotten used to it. But yeah, holy shit it was distracting as hell in the early going.
It’s a bummer it’s leaving, though, if for no other reason that it’s by far the most socially conscious network show your parents probably watch. Maybe that was just a side-effect of really trying to make New Orleans a character rather than just background flavor, but they’re the only one of these shows that actually had episodes taking place DURING COVID (instead of just saying, “yeah, the new season totally starts after the whole pandemic is over, and we’ll acknowledge it with an off-screen minor character death”), with everybody wearing masks and socially distancing and setting up a food pantry in the empty bar. They’ve also dealt with homelessness and wrongful arrest and racism and all sorts of shit that usually doesn’t get a lot of attention in the “crime shows your dad watches” genre. It can get a little after-school-special at times (do the youngs understand that term?) but I appreciate the effort.
If you are into shows that are dealing with what’s happening now, you might want to check out the Grey’s Anatomy-Verse shows, Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy (Yeah, I know, right?). Meredith Grey has been comatose and intubated most of the time since the end of the first episode. They’ve been going in hard on law enforcement for weeks now, and they attacked ICE last year. I don’t think any show has jumped harder into what’s happening now. The shows producers Krista Vernoff, Ellen Pompeo, and Debbie Allen clearly don’t give a shit anymore, and aren’t afraid to risk a significant amount of blowback and career damage from attacking the LEO establishment. The casts of both shows are clearly down with the struggle.The cast is in full PPE, and characters and castmates are clearly and obviously podded up. Characters are out of PPE only with certain other characters, and Pompeo’s indoor scenes are all with everyone in the room fully PPE’d(She has coma-dream sequences that are filmed on a deserted beach). They’ve dived so deep into it that it will probably be hard to watch down the road. In their timeline, George Floyd just died in the last episode, so it’s only going to ramp up.
Roswell, New Mexico has also been going hard against ICE. The lead straight up called the agents assholes to their face.
I was wondering if last night’s shows were reruns from last year and the season is just starting next week. We don’t watch any of them regularly, but if there is nothing else on, it will be on in the background and I noticed that Floyd’s death had just happened.
Nope, the Greys-verse has been running behind real time since the first four season’s covered the fab five’s intern year, so being 11 months behind real time is probably as close as they have ever been. Grey’s continuity has always been a bit of a mess, with some years taking several seasons to get through, and significant time jumps in other seasons, but I think that this season is the first one that operate within 12 months of the episode release since the second season.
Chicago Med and Bull also address it. The former takes place in a hospital, obviously, so half the time the cast are wearing masks. The latter was built on Michael Weatherly’s character analyzing juries, looking for visual ticks and stuff to see where they were leaning, but because of COVID he has to work remotely and his skills don’t work as well behind a monitor. Compare that to NCIS regular (which have had the cast wear masks about 5 minutes total this season) and SVU, which had the characters rip their masks off every 5 minutes.
I always thought the premise behind Bull was pretty deeply flawed, considering the people who can afford a “jury analyst” are the exact type of people who should probably be in jail or paying out massive amounts of cash in civil suits.
I assume they just focus on him doing pro bono work, or something.
I’ve only watched a handful of episodes, but according to TV Tropes, he only takes on people who he believes are innocent, and spends so much money that his company barely breaks even. One of his subordinates even has to leave for another job in another city because Bull’s business doesn’t pay enough to go to college and afford an apartment in NYC.
Ah, so, “The cases you DON’T see are the ones where they charge an exorbitant amount of money to make sure that guilty people go free . . but we don’t see it so it’s okay” style of TV show.
Apparently Bull’s business is a private service, so he gets to pick and choose which cases he goes after. He just so happens to pick innocent clients who can afford his $250,000 fee.
It’s a bummer it’s leaving, though, if for no other reason that it’s by far the most socially conscious network show your parents probably watch.
Which may be why your parents (who are probably younger than me, sadly!) aren’t as enthusiastic about it as NCIS or NCIS: LA. Those shows make it simple, just like Trump — Russkies, Red Chinese and North Korean spies coming out of the sewers; Israel’s Mossad is an…ambivalent ally at best; and if you’re a Muslim, or even think the Koran isn’t that different from the Christian Bible? You’re the Big Bad!I cannot claim any great knowledge of the other two shows — I mostly caught NCIS when my kid brother lived in my office because he never met a cop show he didn’t love (he watched HAWAII 5-0 and recorded CASTLE when they were on at the same time so he could see both!).
I tried watching NCIS: LOS ANGELES a few times and I was like, “What even is this crap? And is this the best Linda Hunt can find?”
Funny you mention NCIS: LA, since both LL Cool J’s character and another character named “Fatima” are both practicing Muslims in the show.
It’s funny how that particular branch of NCIS is always wrapped up in espionage, international intrigue, Russian operatives, and terrorist plots, while the other two are all, “who killed this random Petty Officer?”
Well, good on them, then!
I’m just saying how OG NCIS played from what I absorbed of it while my brother watched the show. And in that version of NCIS? Often, Random Petty Officer was either involved, or stumbled upon, some bit of spying or foreign intrigue….
Alot if that was back when Ziva was on the show, since she used to be a professional spy and assassin for Mossad. Once she left the show, they toned that stuff down a lot.
Just for clarification, China and North Korea weren’t frequent enemies on NCIS, at least the OG. Sure, sometimes they were, but it was usually Russia or Iran. And even then, that was usually saved for season finales, the normal episodes typically had regular Americans as criminals.
And NCIS: LA actually introduced a Muslim woman as one of the main cast last season. Wears a hijab and everything.
So I’ve been told about Fatima, shotmyheartandiwishiwasntok. I was also told Sam is a practicing Muslim as well.
I thought I saw some Asian villains in an episode building up to a season finale. I noticed a lot of Russians, running around saying “Moose and Squirrel” (or at least in that accent!)…and Generic Middle Eastern Nogoodniks.
Shows how much attention I paid to the show — and I’m its target audience!
There may have been some Asian one-offs in the early seasons, but once LA and Five-O came around, especially the latter, since one of them was a recurring bad guy on that show, they moved over there.
Considering that NCIS, like the FBI, could have agents from anywhere working somewhere they are not from, it seems they wouldn’t need the accents. Just make the actors who can’t do an accent be characters who are from somewhere else. Easy peasy.
Well, the premise of NO is based on the real-life NCIS unit in New Orleans, which was 2 guys working in a converted warehouse with little budget. The initial cast was the two “natives” (Bakula and Black) which get a third member in a recurring character from the parent show. It wasn’t until later that the show ballooned into the ensemble its counterparts were.
It’s gotta come to an end at some point I guess. This seems to be the entire programming philosophy of CBS.
From what I’ve gathered Bakula has one of those contracts that balloons in the next season or so. Also I on location shooting is a lot more expensive than CBS thought it was going to be.
My Ma would be happy to hear this. And that’s literally all I have to say about this show.
‘Ocean criminals’? Sounds like an episode of Scooby-Doo.
Shouldn’t they have solved all the Navy Crime by now?
The ocean is deep, and full of mystery.
There’s a lot of weird shit going on in the Navy.
All three shows were very tenuous in their connections with the Navy. Typically, what would happen is that some Navy guy would somehow get involved with regular criminals and get killed, then NCIS gets involved. Though the last few episodes were more personal since supporting character FBI Agent Fornell was suspended and went undercover on his own to find the drug dealer that killed his daughter, then later on Gibbs himself was suspended for beating up the owner of an illegal dogfighting ring.
“Dad, what was it like before NCIS?”“We had to buy music on CD’s and remember phone numbers. It was the harshest of times.”
While we’re talking about acronym law enforcement shows, and weirdo lead-character names, has anybody seen F.B.I.? I don’t watch it, but I often catch the first few minutes because it’s on CBS, and we watch Jeopardy! on CBS, then something streaming, and when that’s over F.B.I. is usually on.Anyway, Jeremy Sisto’s character is named “Jubal Valentine.” Which sounds like a weirdo name like Mark Harmon’s “Leroy Jethro Gibbs” on NCIS. But it’s ALSO the first names of two of the main characters in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (Jubal Harshaw and Valentine Michael Smith). I can’t figure out why! It must be intentional, right? But I search online, and nobody else is talking about this! It’s weird!
My parents watch that, I’ve seen exactly one episode because they asked me to watch it with them (in the before-time, in the long-long ago). They always complain that I don’t watch anything “nice” and that FBI was a solid, good show.
The episode was about an undocumented immigrant who turned on her cartel-connected boyfriend due to a promise by the FBI agents to protect her, then DHS shows up, tosses out her testimony and deports her (because she’s affiliated with the boyfriend she turned in), allowing the cartel-connected boyfriend to go free and the undocumented immigrant getting killed by the cartel almost immediately after being kicked out of the country.
I turned to my folks and said, “This is your definition of a “nice” show?”
It’s a Dick Wolf show. From the same guy who does Law & Order and the Chicago shows, and actually takes place in the same universe. There have been many, many episodes of Dick Wolf shows where the good guys get punished while the bad guys get away scot free. There was one episode of OG L&O where McCoy made an excellent case against a guy who comitted murder, the jury declared him guilty, and the judge immediately (I mean, not even a minute after dismissing the jury) overturns the verdict and lets the guy go. Another episode of SVU had the crew go after a pedophile after one of his victims is found dead. Their case hinges around a second family coming forward, claiming he abused their daughter, only to find out they were lying and the defense manages to get the entire case tossed out and the pedo not only got away, but since he was a celebrity beforehand, he got his reputation restored and is free to be a pedo once again.While he didn’t exactly get away, there was another SVU episode where a 10-year-old psychopath raped and murdered another guy’s 3 and 4-year-old kids. However, the kid put on his precocious puppy dog eyes and managed to convince a jury he was innocent. As he was being walked out of the station, the father of the victims grabbed a gun off one of the detectives and shot the kid. Wolf shows are very dark and often harsh. Just how his shows are, although Chicago Fire does have a lot more comedy than some other of his shows.
Probably because he couldn’t make his character a reprise of Lupo from Law & Order, since the two shows exist in the same universe.
I’ve somewhat enjoyed NCIS over its tenure, but I’m currently having trouble reconciling the current story they’re telling. For those not familiar:Gibbs beat the shit out of a suspect who was also running a dog fighting pit, and drowning the losers by throwing their cages directly into a river. The guy turns around and files an excessive force complaint. Gibbs flat out tells his team “tell the truth, tell them exactly what happened” (that is literally what he said), what his team heard was “commit perjury and scramble to destroy evidence”. By destroy evidence, I mean exactly that, McGee was wearing an experimental body cam that he turned off, and was quite frustrated to learn that it turned itself back on, and then ran around trying to figure out how he can erase the footage.The following week saw the team sans Gibbs (who is indefinitely suspended) being grumpy that they’re getting shit assignments, and noone in the office trusts them. Noone wants to work with them. Meanwhile they themselves are walking around with the attitude of “we didn’t do anything wrong”, and kept trying to insert themselves in a case that wasn’t theirs to investigate.I know NCIS has a long history of “the good guys” doing bad things for “the right reasons”, but in 2021 I feel like this kind of storyline is completely tone deaf. This entire season in general has been kinda crap, but this brings it to a new level.
Yeah, holy shit, that’s some bad idea storytelling, right there. I hope they’re building up to something that brings them to a “come-to-Jebus” moment, but I find that unlikely.
LOL, hell no. The show has made it very clear over its tenure that Gibbs’ team can do no wrong. Even if they violate the rules, the show will paint the ones who point this out like they were obstructions and annoyances.
Yea, last episode was really stupid. Gibbs’ team has always thought they were above any rules they didn’t like, even during the Tiva days (though not without reason, given that Gibbs once stabbed a prisoner because he had no useful info and all he got was a glare from Vance), but that was over the top. And, of course they had to make the rival NCIS agent extra smarmy in order to “justify” things.
I’m not proud of this, but I’ve watched every single episode up until season 16. All I can say is… what the fuck, that sounds terrible.
As a nurse, these types of TV shows have been a great help over the years. Many a (mostly geriatric) patient has been entertained and soothed by Gibbs and Company while in ICU. I am sure many of these people watch episodes over and over on USA while at home, and having something they enjoy which distracts and passes the time in-between activities, meals, etc. is a small blessing. Law and Order is another patient favorite. The younger population tends to the reality series on History and Discovery. If they aren’t TV watchers we also have a big selection of music channels.
It’s got to keep going just so it can at least tie Gunsmoke and Law&Order (20 years) for longest running scripted live-action TV shows.Especially one with the same lead for all those years.Should mention that I quit watching it about 15 years ago. So there is that.
“Please, for the love of god, Donald. Write an episode of NCIS where Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap (also a Bellisario production) leaps into Leroy Gibbs.”When Quantum Leap was airing, there was a rumor that the current season’s finale was going to end with Sam leaping into not Thomas Magnum but Tom Selleck on the set of Magnum, P.I. Bellisario was going to use footage of Selleck from Magnum (for the mirror shots).Unfortunately it never came to pass and instead that season finale had him leaping into Lee Harvey Oswald.