Wednesday night is NCIS night. My parents aren't old enough to be fixedly set in their routine, but they're approaching the age where it reassures them. The nest is emptying, it fills back up then empties again. Television provides much-needed structure in a world that is transitory and fleeting. I guess this is true of much of us, that we rely on popular culture as a crutch of stability, a ruler by which to measure the rest of our lives. The passage of time is notched in our minds by 'gosh, is it time for Cops with Cameras already?'.
I love NCIS though - the humour, the bodies, the banter, the stories, the action, the people. Oh, that Gibbs. DeNozo, McGee, that crazy Abs. That terrifying Ziva. I feel like they're old friends of mine, people I have shared experiences and good times with. Of course, I know they're not real and they would never fit into a world of MAs and Coventry and working and writing, but in my head I could easily slot into theirs.
On a side note, the thing that always makes me chuckle at these American NCSIISSSI: Miami programmes is when the corpses are on the examining table there's always what I call the crotch light - the dead don't have nipples, and they certainly don't have naughty bits. I was watching UK crime scene thriller Silent Witness the other week and there was a distinctly uncomfortable lingering labia's-eye view shot of a post-mortem on a young woman who was freshly dead. Clearly the crotch light doesn't happen over here since the EU banned bright lights.
Anyway - in my head I could fit right into the world of any TV show I happen to love. I think this is how they succeed, much the same as the tea test for a politician - would I want to have a drink with Gordon Brown? No, I wouldn't. But that nice Mr Cameron might make acceptable company for a cup of tea. You'd get your best china out for the Prime Minister and he'd throw it against the wall, knocking you to the ground on his way out. Would I want to have a drink with NCIS? Yes, I would. That would be fun. I'd even bake them cakes.
3 hours ago
Boss? There was actually an episode of NCIS called Dead Men Have No Plums. Srsly. Series 4.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess to a little NarCiISm (see what I did?!?!) I like DeNozo, who to me will always be "Proby", and Ziva's kind of all right, in my opinion.
How does Gibbs get the boats out of the garage?
A fount of information. I didn't know the plums thing. I can only imagine what sort of plotline that episode had.
ReplyDeleteI've never really seen anything before Ziva turned up - it gets terribly confusing trying to follow the seasons with Channel Five because they show them in seemingly arbitrary order.
I have always wondered how Gibbs is going to get his boat out - and where is his garage? He never seems to drive there, so he either lives on the base or keeps his boats there, or just drives really quickly home and lots of people visit him in his basement. Hmm.