A while back, I noted that I wait three episodes of a series to really get a grasp of how good it is. It’s a sample size I stole from TV Guide, back when they were in a digest format, not a magazine. That assumes that it still exists; I haven’t looked.

The first season of NCIS: Origins has aired in its entirety.

It’s … there. It is a thing that happens.

Premise is simple: The pilot starts with Gibbs’ first day working at NIS (Naval Investigative Service), the predecessor to NCIS. His boss is Agent Franks, the character we met in NCIS original recipe. Franks is pure cowboy, with a hint of an actual cop. They’ve added a few idiosyncrasies to his character, such as how he plays easy listening before an interrogation (though it doesn’t exactly mellow him out any).

The first case is a woman murdered in a cabin fire. But Gibbs being a former Marine scout sniper sees something in particular. What he finds indicates that there may be a serial killer. When the FBI bigfoots the investigation, NIS is still looking to see who really committed the crime.

The results are interesting.

The casting is quite good. I was at first annoyed that they didn’t hire Mark Harmon’s son to play a young Gibbs—as they had in the flashbacks during the origin NCIS series. (Their young Doctor Mallard was so awesome, I wanted him to be in a Man from UNCLE reboot. But neither are in this series, damnit.)

I must admit, however, that the people they have manage to make the job work. I like Austin Stowell as a young Gibbs. He’s playing a Gibbs fresh off of executing the man who murdered his wife and daughter … also a Gibbs fresh off of losing his wife and daughter… come to think of it, Gibbs had also been blown up by a land mine in Iraq.

So, this is a Gibbs who is unstable. At least two members of the team, and the NIS division head, all know he’s a little broken.

At the same time, this is written, and acted, as Gibbs. He’s a Gibbs that doesn’t talk until he has something to say. He’s a Gibbs who listens to his gut, even if he doesn’t report on it to everyone around. Overall, Stowell pulls this off surprisingly well.

I don’t know who was hired for Agent Franks, but it’s like they hired a clone of the original to play a younger version of the character. It’s a surprisingly good acting job.

Then there is the character of “Lala” Dominquez. Sigh. The character is just … weird. She starts like she’s some sort of profiler. Then she starts acting like a bureaucrat desperate to maintain her position within the hierarchy. Then Franks shuts her down so hard, the cameraman felt it.

Honestly, the pilot felt like they were going to write another bait-and-switch, where everyone tunes in for Gibbs, and gets “Lala.” Pardon me while I roll my eyes. Halfway through the pilot, it feels like someone came in and said, “Hi, you know this is a Gibbs origin story, right?”

And by the end of the season, you can tell she didn’t poll well in the overall ratings.

The problem with this show is that it pretends like anyone aside from Franks and Gibbs are relevant to the audience. They’re not. Franks and Gibbs are interesting because their characters are baked in—we see where they end up, and a lot of who they are is written into the script.

Everyone else is … there.

Sure, some of these characters show up within original recipe NCIS … but you need a flow chart to track most of them. Note to the writers: When the show is on for twenty years, casting a younger version will feel like nostalgia, ONLY IF WE REMEMBER THEM.

Overall, this show is forgettable. Much like the current episodes of NCIS, I watched it on DVR when I was bored and nothing else was on.

Can someone just kill this franchise already? This season started with five million viewers and ended with less than four million. I remember a time when CBS canceled The Mentalist when it had “merely” ten million viewers, so I don’t know how NCIS: Origins has survived at all. At least the original still has around eight million.

I recommend

Also:

Buy my books