ncis / los angeles
2 Oct 2009 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiIt's not often that I actually review an American series except to squee in fangirl high over them for two minutes without saying anything useful. LOL.
But it's also not often that a spinoff would generate its own spinoff, and NCIS went into its 7th season shouldering a lot of expectations.
The 2-part special last season as a prep for NCIS: LA was interesting, although I got rather bummered to have my only favourite character out of the LA team gunned down in the last two minutes. Fortunately Gibbs said Callen was still alive one episode later and now he's back at work...although how he survived being shot in the chest at close range by a machine gun is still beyond me, but hey...this is NCIS, where Gibbs can teleport.
I've actually seen the first two episodes of both series, even though only one has been screened in Australia *cough* I have to say...I hope the scriptwriting lifts up over the course of this season, or both series will lose fans. Yes, including the original.
It's true that NCIS has never been the cream of the crop as a forensics procedural. I like it - and I think most of its fans like it - because of its team. But while character-focused episodes are therefore playing to its strengths, 7.01 and 7.02 were so full of...I don't know how to describe it...fanwanking? It's full of moments that make the sentimental side of you go all gooey while the tiny little rational voice at the back of your head screeches "WTF?!" Albeit not very loudly, as it's drowned out by the giant "awwww".
That said, Tony and McGee have been growing quite a bit on me in the last two episodes. This is amazing progress considering I used to find Tony mostly annoying and McGee mostly...dull. I've never been a Tiva fan, but the Tiva moments these two episodes oozes of chemistry. I'm even finding Tony's jock antics kind of endearing after watching NCIS: LA, but I'm not sure what that says.
Moving on to the LA spinoff, the first and most glaring problem is it doesn't have an authoritative figure. I'm not saying it needs Gibbs, or even "a Gibbs", but if the original NCIS team was a family headed by Gibbs as the strict yet indulgent dad, the LA spinoff seems like a band camp with a bunch of ill-defined but invariably juvenile personalities.
There are also too many nerds. I know the original team has three as well, but at least Abby is a goth specialising in everything forensics and McGee is a computer nerd, while Palmer is a pure nerd who doesn't have much screen time. Nate, Dom and Eric are mostly indistinguishable from each other except in their manner of ineptitude.
The only charm that the LA team has over the original is a good comaraderie between the two male leads, but it's treading so precariously on the homoerotic line that sometimes it's just plain...cringeworthy.
I'm going to give it time to grow into its shape, but I think the first remedy it needs is someone to give them the Gibbs glare when the smartass quips run out of hand.
But it's also not often that a spinoff would generate its own spinoff, and NCIS went into its 7th season shouldering a lot of expectations.
The 2-part special last season as a prep for NCIS: LA was interesting, although I got rather bummered to have my only favourite character out of the LA team gunned down in the last two minutes. Fortunately Gibbs said Callen was still alive one episode later and now he's back at work...although how he survived being shot in the chest at close range by a machine gun is still beyond me, but hey...this is NCIS, where Gibbs can teleport.
I've actually seen the first two episodes of both series, even though only one has been screened in Australia *cough* I have to say...I hope the scriptwriting lifts up over the course of this season, or both series will lose fans. Yes, including the original.
It's true that NCIS has never been the cream of the crop as a forensics procedural. I like it - and I think most of its fans like it - because of its team. But while character-focused episodes are therefore playing to its strengths, 7.01 and 7.02 were so full of...I don't know how to describe it...fanwanking? It's full of moments that make the sentimental side of you go all gooey while the tiny little rational voice at the back of your head screeches "WTF?!" Albeit not very loudly, as it's drowned out by the giant "awwww".
That said, Tony and McGee have been growing quite a bit on me in the last two episodes. This is amazing progress considering I used to find Tony mostly annoying and McGee mostly...dull. I've never been a Tiva fan, but the Tiva moments these two episodes oozes of chemistry. I'm even finding Tony's jock antics kind of endearing after watching NCIS: LA, but I'm not sure what that says.
Moving on to the LA spinoff, the first and most glaring problem is it doesn't have an authoritative figure. I'm not saying it needs Gibbs, or even "a Gibbs", but if the original NCIS team was a family headed by Gibbs as the strict yet indulgent dad, the LA spinoff seems like a band camp with a bunch of ill-defined but invariably juvenile personalities.
There are also too many nerds. I know the original team has three as well, but at least Abby is a goth specialising in everything forensics and McGee is a computer nerd, while Palmer is a pure nerd who doesn't have much screen time. Nate, Dom and Eric are mostly indistinguishable from each other except in their manner of ineptitude.
The only charm that the LA team has over the original is a good comaraderie between the two male leads, but it's treading so precariously on the homoerotic line that sometimes it's just plain...cringeworthy.
I'm going to give it time to grow into its shape, but I think the first remedy it needs is someone to give them the Gibbs glare when the smartass quips run out of hand.
