Years:  2004, 2005
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English, French
Starring:  Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Sasha Alexander, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Brian Dietzen
Creator:  Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill
Run time:  16 hours, 49 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The second season of NCIS has been by far my favourite.  More focus, better character development, better roles.  Yes, some things still annoy me.  The recurring character of Ari, the Hamas-Mossad Israeli-Palestinian terrorist-freedom fighter-assassin has worn me out, and the season finale makes it quite clear that Ari will be reappearing in Season Three.  At least for a while.  But I like the banter between Caitlin and Tony, I like the fact that McGee has been added to the team full-time, and I like the fact that (until the very end of the season) the show doesn’t do that cop-show cop-out bit where they involve the characters themselves in the cases so that I, the loyal viewer, will care more about them.

     The show is best as just a regular police procedural.  The fact that it has to do with the Navy only is just a silly excuse to create another CSI type show, and that’s all this is.  Only with better-drawn characters and a better cast.  And so when Season Two ends with the team at the centre of a terrorist situation, and the bad guy has targeted them, it spells “downhill” from there.  That, and the end of the season also ramps up that whole rah-rah-super-American go-military stuff that really turns me off.  I think, in the end, the 8/10 rating I gave Season Two applies to the first 14 hours, and not the last three.

Years:  2003, 2004
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English, French
Starring:  Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Sasha Alexander, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Brian Dietzen
Creator:  Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill
Run time:  16 hours, 49 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I must enjoy NCIS, or I wouldn’t have watched the entire first season.  And second season, and third season, and fourth season.  I’ve been on vacation, what are you gonna do?  I was putting on NCIS when I worked out, when I cooked in the kitchen, when I settled down with a beer at…let’s say…noon.  Like I said, vacation.  That’s really what the first season is good for.  In fact, it’s great for that – an interesting, shiny polished police procedural with a top-notch cast that makes for terrific background entertainment while I’m doing something else.

     The first season is being released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on August 2nd.  The reason for the re-release is that French dubbing has been added to the soundtrack, so…there’s that.  Not a lot of difference between the French and English.  Except that the words don’t match their mouths, DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) sounds like a creepy predator, and Gibbs (Mark Harmon) sounds like a nerdy pastry chef.  McGee (Sean Murray) sounds pretty much the same – like a nerd.  And Abby (Pauley Perrette) sounds exactly the same.  I wonder if Perrette happens to speak French.

     The first season is good, but they’re still feeling their way a little bit and the show hadn’t yet come into its own.  They spent a lot of time (and some decent dialogue) making it quite clear that NCIS was NOT the same as CSI or NYPD Blue or any number of other acronym-driven police procedurals.  The thing is…it isn’t.  I really like the cast – Weatherly as the horny ladies’ man, Harmon as the tough commander, Perrette as the flaky “goth” forensic specialist, and David McCallum as the older, wiser, far more long-winded medical examiner.  And really, when it comes to police procedurals, the only thing that sets them apart is the cast.  CSI, Law & Order, Criminal Minds and NCIS all have great actors and good characters – and they all run together.  But I can watch a box set of any of them while I’m cooking.