TV: Serials: NCIS projects to the top of my chart in looks but writing goes for cuteness, twitchiness

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I like mainstream TV's NCIS a detective story with a naval twist. The acronym spells out to: Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The show launched on CBSin 2003, a spinoff of the previous JAG which featured military lawyers and had a certain conceptual gravitas. What is justice, and so forth.

The NCIS show has always been well camera'd; it has the lush colour work of any series produced by Donald Bellasario. But this evening's episode underlined the show's writerly twitchiness. And cuteness. It's all just too thick with froth, undermining any real suspense in the story-line. If looks were everything, on the other hand, you could forget twitch and cuteness.

TV, by Anaximaximum

Presumably, the intention is to add humour, but I find the result something of an overdose. Funny, no; cutesy, twitchy, yes. Dramatic force, undermined.

Tonite's episode, "Singled out," was a repeat of Season 4's Episode 3 (Oct3,2k4).