By design, crime procedurals are durable products. If they're made right, they can last forever and the original CSI & NCIS seem to be well on their way to perpetuity.
A downside to airing forever dulls a sense of quality and any inkling of an endgame, which is why you very rarely hear about the greatest series running near equal that time. "Check," the 269th(!) episode of the original NCIS, is a fine hour of television, possibly even great because of its history.
It's not one of the show's milestone episodes, yet it might as well be. The episode references a lot of the iconography built up over twelve current seasons.
The episode, does it at the expense of Diane Sterling (Melinda McGraw), the ex-wife of Gibbs. With apologizes to Melinda McGraw, whom I've long considered a fine actress since her phenomenal work as Scott Bakula's romantic interest on Men of a Certain Age (Seriously, go watch it. Now.), Diane Sterling is and was a shrill caricature, who only showed up to be grating to the other main characters. She often brought the action to a grinding halt.
She met her end at the halfway point in a trap left by the at-large terrorist, Sergei, who we last saw wounded by Gibbs in this season premiere. Sergei takes her out with a sniper shot to the head, much how Ari killed Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander) in Twilight, the season two finale. It's a moment meant to shock the audience, yet it's obvious with the reveal of Rebecca (Jeri Ryan), Gibb's sweeter second ex-wife, whose clearly meant to be a red herring, that her number was up.
Yet, it successfully rattles Gibbs, who after finding crime scenes that reference the murders of Jenny Shepherd (Lauren Holly) and Mike Franks (Muse Watson), finally corners Sergei at an apartment and gives him limited tunnel vision to righteously pummel the crap out of him, which gives him the advantage to escape, for now.
Shows like NCIS don't often look back at the past often, yet the series is an outlier because it maintained a fairly consistent cast lineup throughout the years, and it should have been obvious that an episode of this nature was in the pipeline eventually.
They've reflected on those character's deaths when they respectively occurred, but the episodes credited writer Steven D. Binder, surprises just on who does the reacting, namely the crew in pathology, Ducky (David McCallum) & his assistant Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen), which the show is prone to forget.
They receive a thoughtful scene when Diane's body arrives in autopsy; Ducky goes about his job, business as usual, yet Palmer can't bring himself to work on another friend who ends up on their table. "I can't do this," Jimmy says. "I can't bring myself to do this to another friend." Palmer sits morosely at the lab desk in the background, which leads Ducky to remark to Gibbs that everyone reaches that point, yet can't remember when he reached his limit in the past. NCIS doesn't usually feature scenes with that level of maturity or reflection, and it's even more special when they do.
NCIS looks like things return to normal next week, yet with that last freeze frame of Gibbs preparing to answer Fornell's call about Diane's, also his ex-wife, demise, they soon won't forget Sergei's brief moment of unleashed anarchy.
And that maturity other procedurals could stand to learn.
A downside to airing forever dulls a sense of quality and any inkling of an endgame, which is why you very rarely hear about the greatest series running near equal that time. "Check," the 269th(!) episode of the original NCIS, is a fine hour of television, possibly even great because of its history.
It's not one of the show's milestone episodes, yet it might as well be. The episode references a lot of the iconography built up over twelve current seasons.
The episode, does it at the expense of Diane Sterling (Melinda McGraw), the ex-wife of Gibbs. With apologizes to Melinda McGraw, whom I've long considered a fine actress since her phenomenal work as Scott Bakula's romantic interest on Men of a Certain Age (Seriously, go watch it. Now.), Diane Sterling is and was a shrill caricature, who only showed up to be grating to the other main characters. She often brought the action to a grinding halt.
She met her end at the halfway point in a trap left by the at-large terrorist, Sergei, who we last saw wounded by Gibbs in this season premiere. Sergei takes her out with a sniper shot to the head, much how Ari killed Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander) in Twilight, the season two finale. It's a moment meant to shock the audience, yet it's obvious with the reveal of Rebecca (Jeri Ryan), Gibb's sweeter second ex-wife, whose clearly meant to be a red herring, that her number was up.
Yet, it successfully rattles Gibbs, who after finding crime scenes that reference the murders of Jenny Shepherd (Lauren Holly) and Mike Franks (Muse Watson), finally corners Sergei at an apartment and gives him limited tunnel vision to righteously pummel the crap out of him, which gives him the advantage to escape, for now.
Shows like NCIS don't often look back at the past often, yet the series is an outlier because it maintained a fairly consistent cast lineup throughout the years, and it should have been obvious that an episode of this nature was in the pipeline eventually.
They've reflected on those character's deaths when they respectively occurred, but the episodes credited writer Steven D. Binder, surprises just on who does the reacting, namely the crew in pathology, Ducky (David McCallum) & his assistant Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen), which the show is prone to forget.
They receive a thoughtful scene when Diane's body arrives in autopsy; Ducky goes about his job, business as usual, yet Palmer can't bring himself to work on another friend who ends up on their table. "I can't do this," Jimmy says. "I can't bring myself to do this to another friend." Palmer sits morosely at the lab desk in the background, which leads Ducky to remark to Gibbs that everyone reaches that point, yet can't remember when he reached his limit in the past. NCIS doesn't usually feature scenes with that level of maturity or reflection, and it's even more special when they do.
NCIS looks like things return to normal next week, yet with that last freeze frame of Gibbs preparing to answer Fornell's call about Diane's, also his ex-wife, demise, they soon won't forget Sergei's brief moment of unleashed anarchy.
And that maturity other procedurals could stand to learn.
