The Unfettered Critic – May 2024

IT’S NOT AS THOUGH our TV is always on.

Granted, it’s active most evenings, as we watch a movie, or a favored weekly program.

But during the daytime…

Okay, okay—it’s on then too—providing comforting background noise to our daily activities, like waves slapping a pristine shore, or soft breezes rustling leaves of forest foliage. Soothing sounds that relax and focus thoughts. We all need that. Right?

Okay, maybe television background noise isn’t quite that soothing. The operative word, after all, is “noise.”

But we consider it “quality noise.” Sometimes tuned to the “Light Classical” streaming station—all music, no commercials. Sometimes to the Food Network, with an iteration of Chopped, or Beat Bobby Flay. Comfort noise about comfort food.

Or perhaps the set is set on a cable news network, which requires only a cursory listen every now and then to see if our nation’s ambient mood has changed at all since the last cursory listen.

Or perhaps it’s a rerun of an old Star Trek episode that one of us has seen umpteen times, and the other has seen often enough to know he’d really prefer not to see it—or even hear it—again.

Recently, however, a different classic TV series resonates throughout the house. It’s hard to miss, seeing as it is constantly airing on an ever-growing multitude of syndicated channels.

We’re talking, of course, about NCIS! How could you not want your house filled with wall-to-wall reruns about these glorious characters: Gibbs and Tony, Ziva and Abby, McGee and… Ducky!

Long live NCIS! Actually, make that long-lived, considering the franchise recently aired its 1,000th first-run episode. Think about that: a thousand cool stories about this once little-known branch of the U.S. military (NCIS = “Naval Criminal Investigative Service”).

NCIS (the show) originated in 2003 as an offshoot of JAG, another naval series, and quickly hit the ground running. As a blend of action, intrigue, and mystery, with a deft sense of humor, engaging characters, and the fancy footwork of a police procedural, it quickly caught on with audiences. Series lead Mark Harmon, flawlessly portraying Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, emerged as a television superstar. By its seventh season, NCIS ranked as the most watched television drama in the U.S., ultimately triggering spinoffs situated in different cities: NCIS: LA; NCIS: New Orleans; NCIS: Hawai’i; and NCIS: Sydney (as in Australia). Now producer CBS Studios has announced two upcoming iterations: NCIS: Origins, featuring a young version of Harmon’s character, and an as-yet unnamed series set in Europe that will center on Ziva (Cote de Pablo, back after having left the show in 2014) and Tony (Michael Weatherly, returning after moving on in 2016). Personally, we think there’s also need for a show about a young Donald “Ducky” Mallard (previously portrayed by the late, great David McCallum). But for now, we’re content to wait. The already-announced new shows will make NCIS the largest procedural franchise ever, with its five on-air series.

We’ll watch them all, but mostly as first-run evening entertainment. The only one figuring into our daytime background noise are reruns of the original, because that’s where we can hear, and okay, we’ll admit it—see (because we can’t help occasionally rewatching) old stories about these old friends.

You’ve watched an episode or two of NCIS over the years, haven’t you? Well, if you haven’t waded into the sea of reruns streaming on numerous channels, we suggest you dip a toe.

“Wait,” you query, “are these Unfettered Types actually suggesting that we repeatedly rewatch reruns?”

Why, yes. Yes, we are.

You got something better to do?