A week or so ago, the magic icon on Netflix appeared, “New Episodes” for NCIS. Cool. Season 12 left with a cliff hangar of Agent Gibbs being shot by a child member of “The Calling” and I needed closure.
So, we tucked into some binge watching of the latest season of NCIS, re-watching the final episode of season 12 to get in the groove.
What a disappointment. It was a pretty weak closure of the cliff hangar (di Nozzo shoots the master mind in China), and then it got into the absurd. Seriously, they are called in to a massacre on a quasi “Doctors without Boarders” camp in South Sudan, and find out that the missing doctor is the husband of Jean Benoit? Are you fucking kidding me? How cheesy is that plot twist.
Or when a few episodes later, the writers bring her back in again? Are you running out of good storylines? Or are you just losing focus. I get how the back story has become a powerful vehicle in the series, how subtly interweaving it with the day in, day out investigations, but in the past the threads have at least been somewhat plausible.
Then there is the episode where there is a private jet that appears to be ghosting on its way to the DC area. Not too incredible, until it is discovered that Abby’s brother, Lucca, is on the manifest after it crashes (that was facilitated by the team “tweaking the GPS satellites to convince the plane to reduce its altitude until it crashed – uh, no, that wouldn’t work, as all devices that used GPS to navigate would fail the same way, but I will overlook that bit of stupidity). Of course he isn’t on the plane and it leads to some wild Russians, and shit that I can’t remember, because it was really really weak.
Then the whole Gibbs recovering from his shooting at the end of season 12, with his doctor following him around like a puppy dog. Really, he just hangs out with the team, but gets so close that his car is blown up?
I have to admit it, they have lost their mojo. Perhaps it is the difficulty of keeping a show going for 13 seasons, or maybe the writers that were responsible for the awesomeness of the middle run seasons left, whatever happened, they lost their mojo, and I am not sure I will keep it in my watch list.
Ironically, I go back to the middle seasons (4-7) and again am impressed by how solid the writing is, and how expertly the story lines weave in and out to deliver a top notch entertaining experience. That mojo has gone, and it is beginning to look like they are going through the motions. No wonder why Weatherly is leaving the show.
