NCIS MODERATORS’ BLOG 35

McGEE AND JULES – COULD IT WORK?

7th October 2009

We met ICE agent Jules Foster-Yates in the season 6 episode “Semper Fidelis”. It was obvious there was some sort of attraction between her and McGee, but could it be a lasting one?

Whatever it was that attracted McGee to Jules isn’t clear. Jules is by no means what you would call beautiful. No could you say she was over endowed with intelligence. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to know that destroying evidence is a really dumb idea. She is also cold, smug and borderline vicious. The tone she used to Abby was sarcastic and downright nasty. I wanted to headslap McGee during that scene. Abby is his friend. He let some woman they had just met insult Abby in her own lab. Some friend!

So what attracted Jules to McGee? McGee is on the whole, a gentle sweet-natured soul. Did Jules also think he was stupid and she could use him in some way? The heavily contrived brushing of the hands together in Abby’s lab, initiated by Jules, suggested that to me. Jules is not naturally flirtatious. If she was, she would have been trying that garbage with Gibbs or Fornell. The two men who actually had some power in the case. Could she have been trying to get to McGee to protect herself? I honestly don’t believe she was trying to protect the dead ICE agent’s reputation. You don’t do that for someone you don’t like.

I also believed she lied to McGee. I’ll believe that Fornell apologized. But I’ll believe Gibbs apologized to her the day Hell freezes over! Gibbs only apologizes to friends. Miss Foster-Yates is definitely NOT in that category.

I think we will see Jules Foster-Yates again in the series, but I don’t think she will end up in a positive light.

I think poor Timmy is going to get his heart broken….again.

LAST UPDATE ON 8th October 2009, 6.20AM Australian Time
SUBMITTED BY MargyW

HAT-TRICK! HAT-TRICK! HAT-TRICK!

7th October

According to Nielsen overnight ratings for last night’s NCIS episode 7.03 The Inside Man, NCIS was again first with 19.165 million viewers!!! Slightly down on previous 2 episodes, but definitely not to be snuffed at. Getting 3 straight A’s is not chicken feed, given the ruthlessness of ratings not to mention how fickle audiences can be today.

Okay! Okay! Okay! I AM aware of the fact that NCIS viewers are by no means fickle fans, proof of this is that our numbers are increasing daily. Moreover, after each episode aired to date the new member influx post-episode airing is considerable, and certainly shows no sign of waning in the near future.

I’d also like to say thanks again this week to member CaseyNJ for PM-ing the ratings to me – please say thank you to her.

Now, where do we go from here? Obviously, these ratings can’t drop any further otherwise the competition will be riding our backsides so to speak. Clearly we must ask the cast and production, i.e. everyone involved in the making of, to pull out all the stops for each and every single episode to stay within the top 5. I mean, we know they do work hard, the results demonstrated by the ratings are proof of this, and also that we the audience are appreciative of this effort and support them duly, not to mention unconditionally. However, to remain Nº 1 from here until end of the season could produce burn out, which none of us want either. However, if they do manage then they’ll have to produce a YouTube vid singing ‘We are the Champions’ at the very least, and I’m being serious.

What more can I say here? Except: Zorionak eta segi aurrera!!

Y con esto y un bizcocho se acabó lo que se dió.

LAST UPDATE ON 7th OCtober 2009 8:30 PM -CET
SUBMITTED BY Sorgiña

7.02 REUNION

6th October 2009

What a marvelous follow on to “Truth or Consequences”. I knew I was in for an interesting time when I saw that “Reunion” was written by Steven Binder. When it comes to plots with more twists and turns than a slinky, you know the name on the credits is Steven Binder.

“Reunion” was also emotion packed. Vance forcing Gibbs to confront his fears about Ziva returning. Ziva trying to apologize to Tony. Abby’s emotion filled explosion in her lab. Wonderful, powerful performances by all the actors. But the best scene was the one in Gibbs’ basement when Gibbs confronts Ziva about Ari and she admits the truth. The look of Gibbs’ face when Ziva said “Eli is all but dead to me. And the closest thing I have to a father is accusing me.”, brought tears to my eyes.

The episode wasn’t short on comic relief either. The scene where McGee, DiNozzo and Gibbs are watching the DVD of the bachelor party was hilarious. Barely any expression on Gibbs’ face, except he blinks rapidly a few times, DiNozzo actually looks embarrassed and McGee looks stunned. Tony’s comment “That’s illegal in most states!” sent my imagination into overdrive.

The scene with a severely micturated Tony desperately wanting to use the head, whilst Gibbs stands there drinking coffee was also very funny.
Gibbs: DiNozzo?
Tony: Yes boss?
Gibbs: Shake it.
Tony: Thanks boss.

Followed by Tony’s frantic dash out of the squadroom. It leads nicely into Ziva’s apology scene mentioned above.

The murder story was secondary to the Ziva story line, but definitely not substandard in the plot department. Complex doesn’t even begin to cover it. I loved it.

“Reunion” also gave us the first head slap of season 7. Yaaaayyyyyy. Gotta love those head slaps.

LAST UPDATE ON 7th October 2009, 6.23AM Australian Time
SUBMITTED BY MargyW

EPISODE TITLES

6th October

I got to thinking about this yesterday after I’d completed my blog, admittedly it’s not an overly serious blog entry, however, at the same time, I thought it might be interesting. I mean, have you ever wondered how writers come up with the titles they do, and in particular the scriptwriters of NCIS – I know I have. But that’s probably because in translation I’m constantly having to interpret language, when I’m not second guessing at what the hell the writer wanted to b***** say in the first place.

Anyhow, I copied and pasted all the episode guides for each season up to the present (as far as we know the titles, which are the first 5), and you start looking at the titles, then you think about the episodes. Finally, you come to the conclusion the titles are absolutely appropriate for what the episode is/was about.

Then take a look at them a second time – ignore what the episode was about, and what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see or hear one of these titles? I’m going to set up pages for this, because I think it would be interesting to see the image/concept/situation a title provokes in itself; it would also be interesting to see if the translation of the same in another language produces the same reaction.

I’m just going to put a few here at random, just to give you an idea what I’m talking about, although I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Rorschach Test (Blob test).

So here goes:

And the above is just the first thing that came to mind. I think this could be quite amusing, so I’ll be getting this up over the week. Bear with me, it may take me a few days (or not depending on my workload), but I’ll endeavour to get it up asap, so we can have some fun.

Y con esto y un bizcocho se acabó lo que se dió.

LAST UPDATE ON 6th October 2009 9:45 PM – CET
SUBMITTED BY Sorgiña