Gear up - NCIS Season 10 premiers on Sept. 25th

There is no I in Team

Every other Behind the Scenes look starts off with the same unimaginative question, how does it feel to be the number one TV drama, followed by how do you do it? And every other time the actors, writers, producers who are unfortunate enough to be obliged to respond to these generic questions come up with variations of the same answer, fabulous, magnificent, beyond expectations but the show is more than the sum of its parts, we have a great team that has worked hard for a almost a decade both, behind and in front of the camera, to get us where we are today.

            For NCSI cast and crew there is no I in team, and they had ten years of building and exploring relationships, not only behind the scenes but also in on screen. We may take a look at ratings to find out that the show is hugely popular in the 50 plus age group, but also younger viewers 18-49 are drawn into its thrall. It is hard to believe the CBS hit show started out as a JAG-Episode way back in 2003. By now Tuesday’s hour-long murder-mystery detective show has gained 20 million viewers, its very own very successful spin-off NCIS: LA, numerous awards and nominations and a huge international fan base. Yet, the question as to what makes the show so extraordinary on a global scale remains largely unanswered.

            A typical episode always begins with a body and Special Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon) catch phrase “Gear up” getting his MCRT team moving. A few head slaps, tons of verbal banter between Ziva (Cote de Pablo) and Tony (Michael Weatherly), Ducky’s (DavidMcCallum) sage ramblings mixed with McGee’s (Sean Murry) technical mumbo jumbo later and Abbycadabra (Pauley Perrette) the murderer is uncovered and the mystery solved. This basic framework of the detective genre without magical solutions produced by hypermodern technology or a chemistry set underlies every episode since season one, of course the writers expand on that by adding greater story arches, combining background information on the characters with hints about future episodes, keeping the viewer in suspense and glued to their TV sets. It can’t be that easy, can it? When next week season 9’s bad guy, Harper Dearing, gets his due in an explosive season premier titled “Extreme Prejudice”, 20 million people will be watching, waiting for his demise. To put that number into perspective, 20 million people is about size of the population of Romania, Cameroon and Sri Lanka, approximately 6 % of the entire population of the United States will tune in for another Tuesday night (September 25, 2012) with the navy cops and every one will agree this is not your average cop show. But what exactly is it?

            Most of the cast and crew agree, it’s teamwork. On screen the team embodies the idea of the melting pot, people from different social or ethnic backgrounds work together towards one common goal despite their religious believes, sex, or skin colour. The principles of Declaration of Independence pair with the profound sense of national pride and patriotism, appealing to the fundamental values of honour and loyalty, which the media has long since declared antiquated or even dead and gone. Yet, despite all the reports to the contrary, national identity still is about these basic values that have been exported as democratic principles to countries all over the world. As if to defy the media image of today’s society the fan base remains loyal to the show, expressing their dedication on a myriad of fan- (fiction) sites. Of course it helps, when the cast embraces the portrayed values of the show, not only in front of the camera but also behind scenes, stating mutual respect and camaraderie as the basis for their working relationships.

NCIS is one huge, sometimes dysfunctional, family, linked together not by blood but by what they believe in and what they fight for, appealing to our ingrained sense of justice. They are the good guys and in spite of their flaws and failures, we need them to win, to stand up and fight for another day, even though they contracted the pneumonic plague, were repeatedly tortured, blown up, shot, stabbed, beaten to a bloody pulp and threatened with evisceration. We need the assurance that in an ever shifting and ever changing post-9/11 world, there are some heroes out there, fighting a good fight to keep us save, giving us mere mortals the peace of mind we so desperately wish for. They afford us with a sense of security though; all the serious media seems to broadcast these days are reports about attacks on troops or embassies, suicide bombers and innocents, killed as collateral damage.

On the surface these characters are types, the frat boy womanizer, the nerdy younger brother, the Gothic sister, the wise older grandfather, the helpful cousin and the stern but loving father. If you dig deeper, you’ll find a well of human experiences and emotions. The creators, Donald Bellisario and Don McGill, as well as the writers and actors have had a decade to sharpen and experiment with the profiles of their characters. They all come with baggage, daddy issues, family secrets, ex-wives, run-away fiancées, dead boyfriends, alleged crimes, absent fathers, dead team mates and a life before NCIS; yet, ultimately its the tension – sometimes sexual tension – between stereotypes, quirky eccentricity and glimpses at real people beneath various layers of masks and professional disguise, proving them to be utterly flawed and human. As such the characters remain relatable, even though the viewer is carefully guided through a jungle of technological and scientific processes, in military lingo or through pop culture references. Gibbs aversion to technology helps cut longwinded explanations down to a bottom line in English. The simple concept of the police story is built-over with complex relationship dynamics in high stress situations and underlaid by age-old stories about love and revenge, greed and hate, fulfilling a basic human desire to narrate stories that make us laugh and cry.

Between the wise cracking action and comic relief, the drama and the gruesome deaths every week, the show has managed to remain topical, from outsourced defence contractors, veterans, war heroes and PTST to homophobia and DADT, women in a men’s world, corrupt politicians, drug traffickers, arms dealers, terrorists – foreign and domestic - and the consequences of the debt crisis, the NCIS team has faced it all, manoeuvring more or less gracefully through red tape and an alphabet soup of federal agencies to serve and protect their country.

            The show has overcome great many changes in the past 10 years, killing off a lot of characters in the process. Next week on September 25^th, when the extremely talented actors put on their character suits for anther season NCIS, team Gibbs has to gear up again to solve anther crime and catch another bad guy.