The most popular show nobody talks about
BY DOUG ELFMAN
Chicago Sun-Times
A decade ago, Lauren Holly co-starred on "Picket Fences," which won awards, critical acclaim and references in pop culture. But it often hovered around No. 60 in the ratings, she says. Now all that's reversed. She co-stars on a Top 10 series -- but it gets no awards, no press and no buzz.
"We're like the bad stepchild" in the media, Holly says of "NCIS," a hit drama based on real sleuthing of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. "I sort of miss the attention -- being written about, the ads in all the magazines, all that stuff. Instead, it's like we're out here by ourselves, and we're just glad we have a loyal fan base that follows us."
Loyal isn't the half of it. "NCIS" has remained in the Top 10 even while it's been running repeats in the same time slot as behemoth "American Idol."
"We're like the only show that does well against it," Holly says.
There's an online devotion, too. SpoilerFix.com, the site that spoils upcoming episode plots of TV shows, says "NCIS" is a Top 10 show for drawing Internet traffic to the site.
What the cast may not know is this: Critics partly neglect "NCIS" because CBS doesn't send us DVD screeners of upcoming episodes; we can't review what we don't have. (CBS wouldn't even supply me with new episodes after I said I was writing this big, splashy feature.)
The cast, Holly says, thinks non-viewers don't understand what the series is: a character-based show, more than a cop-procedure show. They associate it with "JAG," the military show from which it was spun off. (One critic has called "NCIS" a "JAG"-off.) Or they think it's a conservative show.
To the contrary, Holly says it's not conservative; it has a "great cast," it goes for both humor and somber story lines, it's well-shot and quickly paced, "and frequently there's a lot of secret sex going on."
Yet "NCIS" is the most popular show on TV that people don't talk about, she says.
She fears it could remain that way, "shy of us ripping off our clothes and running down Sunset Boulevard, screaming that our hair's on fire. It'll be like, 'Those are the people from that show -- "CSI What?" '"
"NCIS," which debuted in 2003, is not another "CSI" or "Law & Order." It always begins with a caper involving forensics and footwork. Sometimes it's solved, sometimes not. But that's not the thrust. Most of the series focuses on the interaction between the civilian detectives, who flirt with and rag on each other.
Granted, the tone is kind of bizarre. One episode this season began with a military vet getting blown up by a terrorist. At times, his death was treated sentimentally and with manipulative patriotism. Other times, a cop cracked crass jokes about the dead vet. Meanwhile, male and female cops checked out each other's butts.
That's the "NCIS" way. It mixes humor and playful innuendo with grim crime cases. One cop shot a mobile-phone video of another cop who was scratching a poison oak patch in his pants; the phone video made it look like the guy was not itching but masturbating.
Dialogue can be gung-ho silly. In another episode this season, a character said, "These scumbags have been selling weapons to tyrants and terrorists ever since they gave us the slip -- guns and bombs and RPG's used to kill American soldiers and Marines in every hellhole from Mogadishu to Baghdad. It's time it ended!"
That said, "NCIS" isn't a frat house. The three smartest and capable characters are women: NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Holly), Israeli-born cop Ziva David (played by Chile-born Cote de Pablo) and wiry lab detective Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette).
Ziva gives the boys hell, calling them on lies and behavior even as they try to impress her into the sack. These women aren't den mothers or vixens. They're powerful figures who -- like women on other detective shows -- work diligently. They don't giggle or lose composure when men sexualize them.
But Holly jokes she wouldn't mind if de Pablo used her off-camera sexuality to draw more public attention to "NCIS."
"She wants me to start dating a celebrity, which is something I would never do -- not for the sake of dating a celebrity," de Pablo says.
"The women here are being portrayed as smart women," she adds. "I love the fact that they made the director of 'NCIS' a woman [Holly]. That would never happen in real life."
Arguably, the key character isn't any of the women but Mark Harmon's Gibbs. He's the ostensible lead. But Harmon puts all the credit for the show's ratings on the producer, the ensemble cast and the huge crew.
Harmon calls producer Donald Bellisario a demanding "force of nature" and "not for the weak of heart." (Bellisario tries to keep upcoming plots a secret from critics and fans.) Bellisario is a former Marine who previously created and wrote "JAG," "Magnum, P.I.," "Quantum Leap" and the first "Battlestar Galactica."
"You come here, you bring you're 'A' game. And you bring it every day," Harmon says. "We work an average of 16 hours a day, every day, and sometimes Sundays -- [from] July 4th till the end of May. People really put the effort in here."
Most hourlong series shoot scripts numbering at about 57 pages, but "NCIS" scripts are 80 pages, Harmon says. Hard work has garnered fan allegiance, he says. And with no bitterness in his voice, he suggests the show can gain more respect from the press if everyone on "NCIS" keeps plugging along.
"I think we're earning you guys who write about us, and I think we're earning the promos on CBS," he says. "The only thing we can control here is the work we do every day."
Chicago Sun-Times
A decade ago, Lauren Holly co-starred on "Picket Fences," which won awards, critical acclaim and references in pop culture. But it often hovered around No. 60 in the ratings, she says. Now all that's reversed. She co-stars on a Top 10 series -- but it gets no awards, no press and no buzz.
"We're like the bad stepchild" in the media, Holly says of "NCIS," a hit drama based on real sleuthing of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. "I sort of miss the attention -- being written about, the ads in all the magazines, all that stuff. Instead, it's like we're out here by ourselves, and we're just glad we have a loyal fan base that follows us."
Loyal isn't the half of it. "NCIS" has remained in the Top 10 even while it's been running repeats in the same time slot as behemoth "American Idol."
"We're like the only show that does well against it," Holly says.
There's an online devotion, too. SpoilerFix.com, the site that spoils upcoming episode plots of TV shows, says "NCIS" is a Top 10 show for drawing Internet traffic to the site.
What the cast may not know is this: Critics partly neglect "NCIS" because CBS doesn't send us DVD screeners of upcoming episodes; we can't review what we don't have. (CBS wouldn't even supply me with new episodes after I said I was writing this big, splashy feature.)
The cast, Holly says, thinks non-viewers don't understand what the series is: a character-based show, more than a cop-procedure show. They associate it with "JAG," the military show from which it was spun off. (One critic has called "NCIS" a "JAG"-off.) Or they think it's a conservative show.
To the contrary, Holly says it's not conservative; it has a "great cast," it goes for both humor and somber story lines, it's well-shot and quickly paced, "and frequently there's a lot of secret sex going on."
Yet "NCIS" is the most popular show on TV that people don't talk about, she says.
She fears it could remain that way, "shy of us ripping off our clothes and running down Sunset Boulevard, screaming that our hair's on fire. It'll be like, 'Those are the people from that show -- "CSI What?" '"
"NCIS," which debuted in 2003, is not another "CSI" or "Law & Order." It always begins with a caper involving forensics and footwork. Sometimes it's solved, sometimes not. But that's not the thrust. Most of the series focuses on the interaction between the civilian detectives, who flirt with and rag on each other.
Granted, the tone is kind of bizarre. One episode this season began with a military vet getting blown up by a terrorist. At times, his death was treated sentimentally and with manipulative patriotism. Other times, a cop cracked crass jokes about the dead vet. Meanwhile, male and female cops checked out each other's butts.
That's the "NCIS" way. It mixes humor and playful innuendo with grim crime cases. One cop shot a mobile-phone video of another cop who was scratching a poison oak patch in his pants; the phone video made it look like the guy was not itching but masturbating.
Dialogue can be gung-ho silly. In another episode this season, a character said, "These scumbags have been selling weapons to tyrants and terrorists ever since they gave us the slip -- guns and bombs and RPG's used to kill American soldiers and Marines in every hellhole from Mogadishu to Baghdad. It's time it ended!"
That said, "NCIS" isn't a frat house. The three smartest and capable characters are women: NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Holly), Israeli-born cop Ziva David (played by Chile-born Cote de Pablo) and wiry lab detective Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette).
Ziva gives the boys hell, calling them on lies and behavior even as they try to impress her into the sack. These women aren't den mothers or vixens. They're powerful figures who -- like women on other detective shows -- work diligently. They don't giggle or lose composure when men sexualize them.
But Holly jokes she wouldn't mind if de Pablo used her off-camera sexuality to draw more public attention to "NCIS."
"She wants me to start dating a celebrity, which is something I would never do -- not for the sake of dating a celebrity," de Pablo says.
"The women here are being portrayed as smart women," she adds. "I love the fact that they made the director of 'NCIS' a woman [Holly]. That would never happen in real life."
Arguably, the key character isn't any of the women but Mark Harmon's Gibbs. He's the ostensible lead. But Harmon puts all the credit for the show's ratings on the producer, the ensemble cast and the huge crew.
Harmon calls producer Donald Bellisario a demanding "force of nature" and "not for the weak of heart." (Bellisario tries to keep upcoming plots a secret from critics and fans.) Bellisario is a former Marine who previously created and wrote "JAG," "Magnum, P.I.," "Quantum Leap" and the first "Battlestar Galactica."
"You come here, you bring you're 'A' game. And you bring it every day," Harmon says. "We work an average of 16 hours a day, every day, and sometimes Sundays -- [from] July 4th till the end of May. People really put the effort in here."
Most hourlong series shoot scripts numbering at about 57 pages, but "NCIS" scripts are 80 pages, Harmon says. Hard work has garnered fan allegiance, he says. And with no bitterness in his voice, he suggests the show can gain more respect from the press if everyone on "NCIS" keeps plugging along.
"I think we're earning you guys who write about us, and I think we're earning the promos on CBS," he says. "The only thing we can control here is the work we do every day."
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