‘NCIS’ season finale post-mortem: Gary Glasberg answers burning questions!

Posted by admin with 2 Comments

NCIS closed out its tenth season with an episode that left a team divided, Gibbs with a sniper rifle in his hands, and someone we know in the crosshairs of said gun. (For a full recap, click here.)

So where do we go from here? Executive producer Gary Glasberg has the scoop:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I have to say, I couldn’t have predicted where this season was going to end.
GARY GLASBERG: Thank you. This has been a really fun season for me and fun for everyone because, first of all, we tried some very untraditional things. As Mark Harmon and others have said, we did multiple [episodes] that could have been season enders this season — the car crash, killing Ziva’s dad, the revenge factor of killing Bodnar. It was one thing after another and because of that, I wanted to do something different for the actual season finale. So we got into this case that Parsons (guest star Colin Hanks) was building against the team and against Gibbs, and I think it worked pretty well.

Tell me about how you arrived at that storyline.
One of the things we really started to think about was, ten seasons into a show — 234 episodes — [there were] so many cases, so many opportunities and ways that Gibbs handled things but maybe crossed some lines in the way that he handled them. And someone had to have noticed that somewhere along the way. There are people who are paying attention and what if someone — an investigator who was out for his own reasons — decided that this was the opportunity and the moment to go after them and basically say,’You can’t keep doing this.’ Ziva going after Bodnar was just sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And, naturally, Gibbs had to get out of hot water, but that came with a price.
His team resigns and puts their badges down on Vance’s desk and Morrow, along with Vance and others, come to him and say, ‘We can make all of this go away if you help us with this case.’ And it’s, ultimately, a case linked to that head of the Navy SEAL that we were dealing with. All those threads will tie up.

To clarify: That case that Gibbs is working ties into the “threat on home soil” that Morrow mentioned, correct?
Exactly, yes. And, ultimately, jumping ahead four months, we don’t see who’s in that town car but we know it’s someone Fornell is protecting and we’re left with Fornell in Gibbs’ sights.

Well, I immediately thought, ‘Well, it can’t be Fornell…can it?’
Exactly! “Can it?” All the pieces will fit together, I promise.

How quickly? Tell me about how we pick up next season.
Yes. The episode will pick up and we’ll sort of see, in steps leading up to…[background chatter] Brian Dietzen is telling me to be very secretive and not tell you anything.

NO!
[Laughs] In the season opener, we will see the progression of time leading up to that moment that everyone just experienced, and in that progression, we’ll see the case that Gibbs is assigned to, the specifics of the case, how it is unfolded, who the players are, and then when we get to the exact moment. It will all make sense.

Is the whole episode that lead-up?
Yes.

Does that mean we’re also going to learn what McGee, Tony and Ziva were up to in those four jobless months?
Yes.

Have you already figured that out?
I’m starting to. There are a bunch of pieces that are floating around in my head and at some point, when I’m sitting on a beach in Hawaii I’ll figure it all out.

I do have to talk about some of the other characters, obviously. There were so many great character nuggets in this episode. First: McGee has a girlfriend!
The lovely Delilah. That will likely payoff at some point as well. We may even meet Delilah.

Is that something you want to do quickly next season?
I don’t know. It depends on how much I can handle in the opening episode. But, yeah, there are some threads and nuggets — there’s Delilah, there’s the Palmer baby. There are all kinds of little cookies in there that hopefully people will pick up on.

Tony and Ziva had a significant moment in this episode. The question I’m seeing most on Twitter: Did Ziva just ‘Friend zone’ Tony?
I don’t think so. I think there’s a little more to it than that. I think they’re sort of dancing around each other and trying to get a sense of how to move forward and, based on everything that’s happened in the last year, where they are and what the next step is going to be. And, you know, we’re letting it slowly percolate and build and hopefully get it to a place that’s going to be satisfying for everybody.

I thought the forehead kiss was a nice touch.
Thank you. It might not satisfy everyone out there, but I think we’re getting there — she even reaches up with her hand and puts it very gently, and in a lovely way, on his shoulder before that kiss happens. I think there are gestures being made that have definitely advanced from where we were a year ago.

I liked Abby’s video game, by the way. Can we get that released?
Isn’t that cool? Our post-production people did a fantastic job on that.

Any final words on the season?
This has been a really fantastic season for us. Best numbers we’ve ever had — more viewers than we’ve ever had. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the state the show is in. We’ve hired a couple of new writers, we’re already working on five or six of the stories for next season. Everybody is energized and ready to go. We’re going to take a few days off and come back and keep going. The show’s in a really fantastic place and we’re constantly surprising each other about where we want to go and what we want to do. And as long as we keep feeling that, I don’t really see an end in sight for NCIS.

This finale felt like a treat for people who have been watching. That’s not really the procedural way.
It’s true. It was definitely a different season ender but I feel like it’s been a very different season and in doing that, I wanted to come through with something that wasn’t what people normally would have expected. I certainly hope that’s what I deliverered.

Source

Filed in Articles, News, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

May 14,2013

‘NCIS’: The No. 1 TV Show That Nobody Talks About

Posted by admin with 3 Comments

“NCIS” may be the most popular show on television that nobody talks about.

“Nobody,” of course, means TV critics, trend spotters, self-appointed arbiters of the pop zeitgeist. The CBS military procedural doesn’t command the reverence afforded the likes of “Game of Thrones,” “Mad Men,” and “Downton Abbey,” or even nerd-chic shows like “New Girl” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

But when you’re the No. 1 scripted show on TV going on your 10th year, you are hard to ignore. It has had some acknowledgment over the years: USA Today dubbed the show “CBS’ Invisible Success” in 2005 — two years after predicting its demise. Canada’s Postmedia News crowned it “most underrated” and the “Susan Lucci of broadcast TV shows” for never winning an award. The Wrap mentioned “NCIS” in passing, in a recent report about six veteran shows defying the ratings skid.

Push past these nobodies, though, and you’ll find the adoration of legions (cracking 25 million in January, thanks in no small part to USA network marathons since 2008). “NCIS” isn’t just the top-ranking show but also the third-longest-running (nonanimated) primetime show on today, after “Law & Order: SVU” and “CSI.” It’s not just gray hairs either, with McClatchy Newspapers pointing out in February, “It has higher ratings with viewers ages 18-49 — a demographic advertisers love — than ‘Glee,’ ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ and ‘The Office.’” (“American Idol” was toppled in March.)

Wait, there’s more: This week’s finale is episode 234, which passes up its predecessor “J.A.G.” (227 episodes, but over 11 seasons) and might pass an even greater milestone: outlasting “M*A*S*H” (251 episodes), which among other distinctions is the most-watched military-themed show in American television history, drawing 125 million viewers to its finale.

With troops finally being withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been what Fox News has called a “militainment” surge on TV and in movies. Yet since 2001, only a handful of primetime shows have revolved around the military: “The Unit,” “J.A.G.,” “Generation Kill,” “24,” “Army Wives,” and “Homeland”), plus a few reality programs (“Combat Missions,” “Stars and Stripes,” and whatever’s on Discovery’s Military Channel).

Debuting Sept. 23, 2003, during the Bush era and the war on terror, “NCIS” has been one of the few shows to feature men and women in uniform during primetime, week after week.

Ask executive producer Gary Glasberg about its place among military shows, though, and he will say it’s unique. “It’s a combination of humor and suspense and action and pathos, and all of these elements come together in a way that the other shows … don’t do,” says Glasberg, who looks to shows like “M*A*S*H” and “The West Wing” for inspiration. “To me, that’s what makes it accessible and opens up to a broader audience.”

“If you look at our show, it became more character driven,” says Leon Carroll, a former NCIS agent and the show’s consultant since day one. “We don’t do uniforms in our show that much, and you see them even less on [spinoff] ‘NCIS: Los Angeles.’” The show has adapted a successful military model: “The military tends not to emphasize individuals, they tend to emphasize teamwork.”

The longevity of “NCIS” may lie less in its military focus than in its criminal diversity. The civilian federal agency’s real-life investigations run the gamut from white-collar crimes to counterintelligence operations. Storylines can come from calls to the secretary of the Navy, interviews with female Marines, and chats with military families who visit the set. Some of the show’s scripts could have easily landed in the inbox for “Law & Order” or “Monk.” Serial-killer plots steer clear of the torture-porn of a “Criminal Minds” or “Hannibal.”

While it may not be “The Office,” “NCIS” is as much a workplace show as it is about murder investigations. Its formula is more akin to that of “Bones,” the Fox show about a team of forensic anthropologists working on FBI cases. Camaraderie, banter, pranks, and goofy eccentricities galore (like Abby Sciuto, the Goth forensic expert who owns a stuffed farting hippo called Bert) balance out grittier themes like PTSD, weapons trafficking, and religious or sexual intolerance. The Wall Street Journal called the show’s humor “rather tame,” but it translates in 200 international markets.

And how ordinary their main characters and guest actors can be, and still pull off extraordinary acts of heroism or villainy in a day’s work, may be what ultimately draws audiences. “These are people with kids that go to school and families, and this is the job that they do every day,” Glasberg says. “Part of what drives them is a genuine desire and belief in serving their country, and that’s where the patriotism really does come in.”

Making mistakes, decisive moves

When the show celebrated its 200th episode last season, star Mark Harmon attributed its success to being “a show that wasn’t good enough to get all that noticed and wasn’t bad enough to get canceled.”

That breathing room gave it time to revamp. The Australian (yes, it’s No. 1 in Australian) has called its run remarkable, especially since the show started out “uneasily” with “stilted” character interactions. “But the cast pulled it off by slowly embracing the corniness and deadpanning the military cop theme and melodrama,” the article notes. “The show has grown funnier, quirkier and more confident season by season; now it’s far less like a square crime drama and more of a satisfyingly grown-up TV comedy for an ageing audience.”

That revamp includes decisive moves that still rank high in memorable TV-deaths history: In the first-season finale, a Mossad renegade shot lead character Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander, now on “Rizzoli & Isles”) in the forehead. The next episode showed teammates coping by interacting with the Caitlin of their imagination — for wolfish agent Tony DiNozzo, that involved her wearing dominatrix gear.

Neither rank nor friendship — nor being a fan favorite — protects you: Characters like NCIS director Jenny Shepherd (Lauren Holly) and former agent and Gibbs mentor Mike Franks (Muse Watson) have suffered violent endings. And that renegade who killed agent Todd was killed by his own half-sister, Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), who later became part of the team.

In this past season, her father — the head of Mossad and David’s father — was assassinated in a machine-gun assault that also killed Jackie (Paula Newsome), the mother of two and wife of the NCIS director, Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll). “I don’t necessarily see that as ruthless,” Glasberg says of the death count. “I have no problems coming up with stuff that keeps audiences on their toes.”

The death count, though, is one thing that does bother the congenial Carroll. “We’ve had agents in shootings and we’ve had agents who have been attacked in interrogations, but we’ve never had any fatalities as a result of that,” says Carroll. “The show has, obviously, killed off more agents than you can count. And actually, there have been times when I said something to Gary when they were going to kill more.” Carroll has been able to save a few fictional lives.

Given its track record, who’s imperiled? “I’m very excited about this season ender,” Glasberg confides to Yahoo! TV. “Last year we had a huge cliffhanger with an explosion at the Navy Yard and Ducky with his heart attack.” The manhunt for Ilan Bodnar (Oded Fehr) — the renegade Mossad agent who masterminded his boss’s assassination — just ended with his being tossed off a ship by his vengeful daughter.

“Understandably, there’s an investigation into Bodnar’s death,” Glasberg says, conducted by a Department of Defense investigator, Richard Parsons (Colin Hanks). “It puts our team in a difficult place, and Vance and Gibbs in a difficult place, and that investigation will take us into the finale and takes us to a legal place where we need some help, and end up turning to John Jackson.”

For die-hard “NCIS” fans, Jackson will be a familiar figure from the show’s predecessor as military attorney Albert Jethro “A.J.” Chegwidden. “I wanted to bring back a JAG,” Glasberg says. “It’s a nice reunion, and it’s very tense and, I hope, suspenseful for people and drives all the way to the finale and teases when we come back, so I’m excited about it.”

And in typical “NCIS” fashion, there will be peculiar twists like the return of Muse Watson as Gibbs’s conscience. “There are a couple of bizarre scenes that I’ve written that the actors are having fun with. That will be in a finale.”

And will agents DiNozzo and David? “Part of the fun is keeping that tease alive,” Glasberg says. “Who’s to say where we’re going with Tony and Ziva, but it’s certainly fun getting there.”

The season finale of “NCIS” airs Tuesday, 5/14 at 8 PM on CBS.

Source

Filed in Articles, News, Site Update, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

May 07,2013

Will Gibbs and the ‘NCIS’ Team Be the Subjects of a Witch Hunt?

Posted by admin with No Comments

Despite the fact that on last week’s episode of “NCIS” Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) told Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) that Homeland would have to handle the Ilan Bodnar (Oded Fehr) investigation, his eyes gave off a completely different signal, urging her to do whatever needed to be done to bring Bodnar to justice. Not surprising, when you consider that Bodnar murdered Vance’s wife and Ziva’s father, and that this particular branch of naval investigators tends to color outside the lines.
Record Series

So when NCIS tracked down the ship on which Bodnar was trying to flee the U.S., Ziva headed out on her own to try to capture — or kill him. The two got into some serious fisticuffs — with Bodnar falling to his death, just as Leroy Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), and Tim McGee (Sean Murray) arrived to try to keep her from doing something stupid.

This week on “NCIS,” there will be consequences to their actions. Colin Hanks (“Dexter”) guest stars as Department of Defense Investigator Richard Parsons, who has been called in to scrutinize the NCIS team in response to the Bodnar case. Ziva could be in some serious hot water, but she won’t be alone.

“The whole team is involved, not just in the Bodner matter, but in multiple stories that we have encountered before, and it’s not a matter of passing the buck,” executive producer Gary Glasberg told xfinityTV in an exclusive interview. “Vance definitely has an investment in this, so starting next week, there is a Department of Defense investigation into the way this was handled.”

Glasberg says he is very excited about landing Hanks for the guest-star role, which will carry over at least into the season finale on May 14, if not into the beginning of Season 11. He compares the character of Richard Parsons to Ken Starr, who is best known for his investigations into the suicide death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, Whitewater, and Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton administration.

“Parsons looks into this case and it blossoms into a lot more,” Glasberg says. “There is a barracuda quality to him. Hanks has this fantastic, boyish naiveté to him that is, honestly, anything but. He brings this character to life in a fantastic way. We are a few days away from finishing up the finale and he has just been terrific.”

As an independent investigator, Parsons is appalled by the fast-and-loose methods Gibbs’ team employs, and he definitely isn’t someone who believes the ends justify the means.

“That is the argument,” Glasberg says. “Do results justify it? His counter to that would be: Is there a point where you’re taking advantage of the system and pushing it too far? Does he want to make an example of Gibbs? Is it literally a witch hunt?”

While the investigation is ongoing, it is back to business as usual for the team, which has to figure out whether or not a Petty Officer is suffering from paranoia, or if his claims of being followed are tied to a matter of national security.

“The team comes back to work, as you say, to get back to business as usual and then this investigation starts,” Glasberg says. “What is initially about dotting Is and crossing Ts in closing the Bodner case, turns into more. We start to realize that Parsons is looking deeper into how many times can this team push the envelope as far as they do and not think someone is paying attention. That is a point he brings up directly with them. Eventually, their actions are going to catch up with them. He feels it is his duty to make that happen.”

Last week’s episode began where the week before had left off with the T-boning of Tony’s car, with Ziva in the passenger seat. It looked as if they were going to be seriously injured and spend at least part of the episode in the hospital, but that isn’t what happened.

“The accident was really more about Bodnar than putting them in crazy, medical jeopardy,” Glasberg says. “God knows, there have been accidents in which people are injured in but not necessarily critically. It was more about Bodner getting his hands on the diamonds and stopping them.”

Just before the accident took place, there was a nice moment between Tony and Ziva, in which they squeezed hands. So with Parsons out to get the team, could Tiva turn to each other and come closer together?

“I think we have actually made some significant steps this season, in terms of where they are and how open they have been with each other,” Glasberg says. “There have been some significant conversations. The question is: How far will that go and how far will we carry it?”

One consideration, of course, is the fact that if they ever do hook up, one of them would have to be reassigned to another team. But there is another reason: “We continue to step it out the way we do because it is fun to tease people. The dynamic of will they–won’t they is the fun of the beginning of a relationship. I know that this has been going on for a long time, but why not keep it going? Why not continue to enjoy that spark between them as long as we can?” Glasberg concludes.

“Double Blind,” the penultimate “NCIS” episode of Season 10, airs Tuesday, May 7 at 8/7c on CBS.

Source

Filed in Articles, News, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

May 02,2013

Matt’s Inside Line: What’s Gibbs Working on?

Posted by admin with 2 Comments

What is Gibbs building in his basement on NCIS? Will we find out before the season ends? –Joyce
“Your question is perfectly timed,” showrunner Gary Glasberg answers. ” Don’t miss the season finale (airing May 14) and you’ll see what Gibbs has been slowly working on in the basement for months. It’s going to be a terrific new addition for our family.” Hmm. “Addition”? “Family”? It’s a big ol’ crib!

I saw CBS advertising “the last three episodes” of NCIS. Does this mean “ever,” or this season? They did not specify. –Sharon
I answer only because I received a stupefying amount of questions about this cruel CBS promo. Rest assured, NCIS was renewed for Season 11 some time ago. (We’re just still waiting on Cote.)

Source

Filed in News, Site Update, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

Apr 30,2013

Finale Preview: NCIS

Posted by admin with 2 Comments

NCIS (Tuesday, 5/14, 8/7c, CBS)

There are ghosts both literal and figurative in NCIS’s finale, which brings back one character who was killed off two years ago and another who hasn’t been seen for more than a decade. It should be bait enough for hard-core NCIS-heads that late, lamented mentor Mike Franks (Muse Watson) makes his second posthumous appearance as an otherworldly sounding board for Gibbs (Mark Harmon). But sometimes a guy needs a lawyer even more than he needs a conscience. Enter John M. Jackson as A.J. Chegwidden, who was a regular on JAG when that series launched NCIS as a spinoff 10 years ago. “It is a big stretch of time” after which to revive a character, says NCIS executive producer Gary Glasberg, “yet there’s a connection to those JAG characters that’s similar to the way people feel about our characters.” He says the story “isn’t necessarily JAG-related” but reintroduces A.J. as an attorney who’s now working in the private sector. Gibbs is in need of expert legal counsel because he’s in hot water with a Department of Defense investigator (Colin Hanks) over the team’s aggressive handling of a Mossad leader’s assassination. As for Franks’s latest spiritual appearance, hints Glasberg, it involves a few phantasmagoric scenes “that will leave people questioning whether what they’re seeing is real or not real, and how it’s informing Gibbs’s decision making.”

Source

Filed in Articles, News, Site Update, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

Apr 29,2013

Press Release Episode 10×24 “Damned If You Do”

Posted by admin with No Comments

GIBBS AND THE TEAM ARE ASSIGNED LEGAL COUNSEL AFTER THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IG INVESTIGATOR PUTS THEIR FUTURE AT THE AGENCY IN JEOPARDY, ON THE 10TH SEASON FINALE OF “NCIS,” TUESDAY, MAY 14

Guest Stars Include Colin Hanks as Department of Defense IG Investigator Richard Parsons, Muse Watson as Mike Franks and John M. Jackson as Rear Admiral AJ Chegwidden

“Damned If You Do” – The international manhunt for Eli David and Jackie Vance’s killer turns into a federal witch hunt against Gibbs and the team, which questions their unconventional methods and threatens their future at the agency, on the 10th season finale of NCIS, Tuesday, May 14 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Guest stars include Colin Hanks as Department of Defense IG Investigator Richard Parsons, Muse Watson as Mike Franks, and John M. Jackson as Rear Admiral AJ Chegwidden.

CHEAT TWEET: Gibbs & the team’s future at #NCIS is threatened by DOD Investigator on season 10 finale 5/14 8pm ET/PT

Filed in News, Release, Site Update, Sneak Peek, Spoilers

Apr 24,2013

Wonderfully Weird Michael Weatherly Thinks His Onscreen Relationship Is Like A Cold Sore

Posted by admin with No Comments

Michael Weatherly has played Special Agent Tony DiNozzo for 10 seasons on NCIS, and since Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) showed up on the NCIS scene in season three, the sexual tension has been in constant fluctuation. Their interactions on the show are scrutinized by viewers. Now in season 10, it seemed like Tony and Ziva, “Tiva” to scrutineers, were just about to really admit their feelings… and then they got in a car crash. Weatherly weighs in on where the relationship’s been and where it’s going.

At what point did you find out that this season was going to be a turning point season for your character’s relationship with Ziva?

Michael Weatherly: I don’t know if it is necessarily. I think that their relationship is just a big circle. It’s constantly turning. They are locked in a binary death spiral. This year proves to be particularly interesting, but when they met, who knew — well, the audience did, but Tony didn’t know — that she killed her own brother, who had killed Tony’s previous partner, and that created the space in the squadron for Ziva to arrive. Had Ziva’s brother not killed Kate, there would be no Ziva. It’s all very tricky. And then Tony did kill her boyfriend once.

Yes, I remember that.

MW: (laughs) You know what I’m saying? Look at these guys! It’s like watching a scorpion and a black widow try and figure each other out. Or a praying mantis and a black widow? One of them eats your head after it mates with you, right?

But yeah, these guys, they’ve got a rich history of conflict and physical attraction and physical repulsion. There’s a lot of bickering, they swerve wildly into sibling country, and then careen over the cliff into possible kissing cousins, and suddenly they find themselves — I mean, they’re holding hands at the end of “Berlin.” It’s fantastic how these writers just fuck with everybody. And to think that [NCIS writer-producer] Gary Glasberg has a background writing Rugrats.

We just shot a scene this season where the writer had his hands above the air in a silent cheer, and his face looked like the Edvard Munch painting. He was so fucking excited that Tiva was full-on Tiva. I think people who watch the show who enjoy their Mark Harmon and liberal doses of the other characters might find it somewhat irritating that these two are cutting a rug, so to speak, in “Berlin.” Sharing some longing looks, bedroom-eyes. I think that’s probably disconcerting to some fans of the show, and other fans probably think it’s long overdue, and yet others are probably thinking it spells the absolute doom, the moonlighting death.

Tell me more about this Munch face one of the writers made.

MW: Well actually he was described as holding his hands above his head like Philip Seymour Hoffman holding the boom in Boogie Nights while Mark Wahlberg was doing the sex scene. Yes, it was a great moment. I hope it’s not just cheesy melodrama — I think we achieved something on a character level that was very interesting. It was about communication and trust between people that work together, share an attraction for each other, but the boundaries have blurred a little bit, and that’s what Tony and Ziva are dealing with, ultimately.

Did you not foresee that it would progress like this for such a long time?

MW: It was like a herpes virus. It laid dormant for so long, I thought it had gone away. And I’m talking simplex 1. I’m not referring to any sort of genital herpes. But still, the simplex 1 can be painful and unsightly. Not to compare Tiva to herpes — I guess that’s unfair. But I did not see it coming. I still don’t see it coming — not in any real way.

The Tony DiNozzo character is trapped like a fly in amber from prehistoric days because he has to be. If Tony actually gets his groove on, gets his shit together, grows up a little bit, knocks the chip off his shoulder, gets the girl, or just gets on with it, then he’s out of that squad room. He doesn’t get paid that much now. Not to be too inside-baseball about the whole thing, but come on. You know Tony and Ziva can never really have any kind of a thing because first of all they’re coworkers, and that’s just a stupid idea. Second of all, she’s a ninja assassin with all sorts of issues. Yes, we know he’s emotionally arrested and he has some commitment phobias, but look at her! Have we seen a successful relationship pop out of her?

No.

MW: No. Everyone gives Tony all this grief for being an overgrown frat boy. But Ziva David, she’s just a train wreck of a girl. Most of the guys that she’s slept with are dead. If you had a girlfriend, and more than 50 percent of the people she’d slept with were dead — and by the way, she’s not 90, I’m talking about a healthy young female — that’s a weird amount, even for someone in Israeli intelligence. I’m just saying.

How aware are you of the fan interest in Tiva? Have you read any of the fan fiction? Does it feel weird to be in this highly scrutinized television relationship?

MW: Well, I am aware of it only as much as you become aware of these things through doing press, talking to people about it. Of course, this has been conjured, I would think, through the internet. I don’t go in for fan fiction and trolling on boards and all that stuff because I find that it doesn’t lead to a healthy outlook. I surmise from interactions with people and conversations. There’s probably all kinds of crazy CNN fan fiction; I don’t know anything about it. What would the Don Lemon–Anderson Cooper name conjunction be?

Danderson?

MW: Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon. Coomon? Or Looper? I guess it is more like Ben and Jen and Brangelina. Usually the first names, isn’t it?

Maybe Aan. Two As.

MW: Danderson’s not bad. Or just Dander. Anyway, I am aware of it. It doesn’t really impact me too much, but I find it highly amusing.

This has been going on so long, I was just wondering if there are any inside jokes about these moments when you’re filming? What is the reaction to that on set?

MW: Nobody really makes any fun of it. We take our jobs pretty seriously. At the beginning of season seven, I went to Africa and rescued her ass. I have always enjoyed the push-and-pull and the tension of Tony and Ziva. I think it’s clear that he has very strong feelings about and for her, but he also knows what the boundaries are and what the rules are. I did a show before this one, Dark Angel, and they tried putting those characters together, and that was bad. That was bad for the show. Bad. You don’t want to put characters together.

It seems like maybe crime procedurals are well-suited to these ongoing, sexual tension–heavy relationships — I’m also thinking of Bones — because there’s not that much continuity in the action of each episode, so to have continuity in the relationships that really doesn’t change works.

MW: Didn’t they have a baby, the Bones people?

Yeah, they gave in a couple of seasons ago.

MW: I mean, I don’t know anything about it, but I would say as a stranger to the whole situation that I don’t approve. But yes, it does give continuity.

One of the great things and the hallmarks of NCIS, a CBS crime procedural spinoff of JAG, which was in its own way a law procedural show with heaping spoonfuls of patriotism and a solid moral compass, is that our show has kind of a serious office place dramedy feel to me. Sometimes it feels like we’re doing West Wing meets Scrubs. It feels like we have a job that we do; it just so happens that we’re investigating crimes. But we work in cubicles, and we have a hierarchy, and there’s a boss. Nobody has superpowers, but we all have paper clips and staplers. I really am very attracted to the office work of NCIS. I think that a majority of the show, or at least a major chunk of the show, takes place in the squad room, where we’re not just deciphering the clues of the case of the week, but we’re also giving each other a good old fashioned hard time. To me it’s not just action-adventure. Our show has at various times, something approaching action, but my favorite parts of it are just the interactions between people.

I’ve noticed that it seems the turning points, or as you put it, “parts of the circle,” for Ziva and Tony, happen in foreign places.

MW: When you’re away from the prying eyes of the office. It’s always those business trips that you’ve got to watch out for. Everybody gets into trouble on the expense account. DiNozzo did go to the Bahamas with Dorneget earlier this year, and he got busted for his expense account there, actually. But I don’t know if anything romantic happens with Dornie. I don’t know if DiNozzo goes both ways.

Maybe in the cartoon.

MW: There’s more road. You know, that would be nice, to see DiNozzo on the cover of Out magazine. I think that would confound some of our viewers, but then maybe not surprise others at all.

Source

Filed in Articles, Interviews, Site Update, Sneak Peek, Spoilers