If you've read this blog before, you know that I don't watch a lot of TV shows. I watch a lot of TV, but it's mostly sports. However, one of the shows that I do watch regularly is Bones. Now, it hasn't been nearly as good this year as in past seasons, but that's not what this post is about. Fox is driving me crazy with the way they're scheduling the new episodes. The season started with three new episodes then a week off. After that came the baseball playoffs so two weeks off. Then no new shows for the month of December and half of January, followed by one new episode, two weeks off, a new episode and now three weeks off. It's very frustrating. As a result, I've begun to look elsewhere for my "mystery that is wrapped up in one hour" fix.
This has led me to an enjoyable program called, NCIS. It's basically like any of the CSI's, only all of the crimes have a military background. It stars Mark Harmon who, as we know from Family Guy, is cool: "This is not the Gil Gerrard speech. Granted, it is similar to the Gil Gerrard speech." (Obviously, I couldn't find the full clip on Youtube.) It has the pretty standard formula where there is a mystery, a cleverly-lit naked body on an autopsy table, some evidence, a twist at the 45 minute mark and everyone is happy at the end of the hour. At some point they replaced the cute American girl with a cuter Israeli girl... haven't caught the episode as to why yet. As far as I know, that's all that's changed about the show in 5 seasons. Also, bonus points when they start the scene with a snapshot of the last shot of the scene, so you know when it's coming. That's just very convenient if you need a drink or something.
NCIS goes into the category of shows that I don't watch when they are new such as Law & Order, Scrubs or CSI: NY. I never watch these shows on their first run or original channel, but I always seem to watch them when they are repeated on cable channels.
There are advantages of jumping into a show that's a few seasons in, especially if it's syndication. We're not talking about a show like Heroes or Lost here. With those shows if you haven't been watching from the initial episode then there is no point in starting now unless you want to spend a weekend with your DVD player catching up on past seasons. If you've never seen an episode of NCIS, you can watch one, pick up the show almost immediately and put it down just as easily. Not to mention they seem to have marathons of NCIS every other weekend so you can watch a couple episodes in a row until something better comes on.
The weird thing about the show is that it was on for several seasons and not doing that well in the ratings, when all of a sudden it picked up for no real reason and is now one of the most popular shows on television. I guess the power of Mark Harmon will just not be denied.
2 comments:
If you ever need new company to watch NCIS, head to the Oak. My parents watch it all.the.time. Oh, and they show it here in Dublin too. I don't watch - for me, it's Jag or nothing.
The cute American was shot by a sniper. Who was also a terrorist. Great episode, I can't remember what season, though, as I catch NCIS mostly on USA network.
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