One short, or: why losing one of the few truly strong female characters out there is a bad idea
Let me start this by confessing something that, to some, sounds almost like a dirty little secret. In fact, many perfectly rational people cringe if they are ever forced to bring up this particular secret with their friends and family, because while it has become so commonplace to have a "coming out" and stand up for your likes if it concerns matters of sexual, religious, or political preference, it's rare that people sit down their loved ones only to admit something that often carries the stigma of a lack of mental and emotional development. So, here's the thing you need to know about me: Hi, I'm Sammy, and I'm a fangirl.
I'm okay, though. No, really. I'm not a screaming, wailing teenager, which is probably what most people associate with the term whenever it comes up. I'm in my early forties, I have a good, fascinating, challenging job, a somewhat functional Real Life and friends, I'm mostly healthy (even though my dietary habits aren't always), and for quite some time I managed all of that while not residing in my mom's basement. I still dig books, games, movies, and TV shows with a fierce passion... and that's where the fangirl part kicks in: I really do love my fictional crack a lot. And my love doesn't stop at mere consumption. I like to write about the things I love, I regularly analyze them down to the deepest hidden meaning of the most fleeting glance between two characters, I waste countless hours on abusing pencils and pens to create drawings of my favorites, and I wrestle with photo-editing software on a regular basis. I'm also a cosplayer every now and then. And yet, I never see a dime for any of those things that often amount to hard work. (Quite the contrary, actually -- I hesitate to add up the time and money I poured into my passionate fan-self over the years. Now *that's* a thing that actually gives me a good reason to cringe...)
I *was* a teenager when I first fell in love with feeling fannish, mind you -- not the screaming, wailing kind, though, more the introvert who preferred to be home and comfy over going out with... well, screaming, wailing teenagers. I grew up with a passionate love for television, starting out on an old black and white television set that gave me "Kimba the White Lion". Later, countless hours of joyful consumerism went into shows like "Simon & Simon", "Magnum", and "The Professionals". Early spouts of "shipping" (the fannish joy in seeing two characters interact in a "relationshippy" way) happened long before I knew what that term meant -- heck, before it was even coined -- and so shows like "Hart to Hart" and "Remington Steele" added a special flavor to my fannish youth. The flavors changed over time, and my own tastes along with them, but one thing never changed: my deep attachment to well-written fictional characters and the multitude of reasons I would suddenly find myself attached to them, one way or another. If anything, that special kind of attraction grew more meaningful the older I got, because over time I had learned a lot about things like writing techniques, character building, human interaction and psychology, and subsequently I understood a lot more about analyzing context and subtext and figuring out an author's intentions. Second-guessing things turned simple consumerism into something way more interesting -- and way more satisfying on an intellectual level, even when the object of my affection is a cheap, trashy, mass-market product, simply because these days I no longer have to rely on defining it as fun vs. not fun. I have learned to articulate quite easily why I like some things and have almost allergic reactions to others. And I found that most of the time I actually have much better reasons than mere gut feelings for liking or disliking something.
Over time, I fell more and more for genre shows, simply because they gave my brain more to process. Shows like Quantum Leap, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, and Farscape... oh boy, those sure left their mark on me, let me tell you! They were so much more... daring than the average procedural. So much more intriguing. They went to the dark places and touched the (emotional) challenges of our lives. And they offered me characters that felt, strangely, a lot more like actual persons than what you see in most prime time entertainment shows. So, imagine my surprise when almost four years ago I suddenly found myself entranced in a way I had never encountered before by nothing other than... a procedural.
People like to say that some things do get better with age, and NCIS seems to be one of these things: in its tenth season, when other shows have long started their inevitable decline in quality and ratings, an average of 21.34 million viewers propelled NCIS to the number one spot in the list of most-watched TV shows in the US. The show also broke its own previous record and raked in a new all-time series high of 22.86 million viewers with the episode "Shiva". It's not common for a mere crime show. Then again, NCIS has never been a common crime show. Even in its early years, when the characters were still a bit more stiff and the focus was a little heavier on the crime of the week, the show was at its most intriguing whenever it strayed off the strictly procedural path and gave us raw emotions instead -- something (or someone) to connect to. Over the years, that recipe was deliberately enhanced by the creators, and the show got more daring and direct in its approach, especially after the addition of a new female character that would soon prove to be much more than a mere replacement for an old team mate: Mossad liaison officer Ziva David.
Ziva was unlike any other character I have seen in my 40-something years of television addiction. She was sassy, mindnumbingly pretty, and she certainly didn't censor her opinions. That last part alone was a refreshing change from the average (US) crime show heroine, who suddenly seemed just that in comparison: average. No special flavor to most of them, except for a scripted trauma here and there. Nothing that really distinguished one girl agent from the other. Ziva stood out, though, from the first moment she sauntered into the bullpen and asked Tony if he was having phone sex. There was a certain spark about her, something that tickled me, the casual viewer who usually abhors crime shows these days, on a gut level. That woman was excitingly different from the bland, formulaic character recipes TV dishes out so often for the viewers, and very soon it would begin to show that her addition shaped the show itself in a new, exciting way as well. With her on board and the intriguing Mossad and spy background she had, the authors soon got a lot bolder and more experimental. They went to storylines they probably would never have touched before -- storylines that focused heavily on character development and emotional entanglements instead of mere crime solving. And it seemed to be a path that struck a chord with the audience: the ratings climbed slowly and steadily. By the time I and many others got enthralled by the show, it had managed to climb up among the most-watched scripted TV shows in the US, from 26th in season one to 5th place in season six -- not a bad accomplishment for a point in their timeline when most other shows have long gone stale and/or gotten cancelled.
The end of season six changed things, brutally, and the year 2009 didn't just end with Ziva being held captive by a terrorist cell in Somalia with little hope of survival - it also ended with this casual viewer staring at the end credits of the season finale in shock and completely numb. It was something I hadn't expected at all. Not from the emotionally safe confines of primetime TV. I slept badly that night. But for the first time in months it weren't my own problems that ran through my head and kept me awake -- it was the fate of a certain Israeli officer, whom I had grown to like a lot more than I'd realized before. The next day, I searched online, to see if she would even be in the next season. (Being in Germany, we usually get to see the episodes about six months later than the US audience, after all.) When I had breathed my sigh of relief, I found that I really, really needed to know how this played out. I needed to know so badly that I searched for a site to greedily devour the ten additional episodes that had aired in the US by then online. It took me less than a week. At the end of that week, I went and watched fan-edited videos online for days -- by far the most fun I ever had over the Christmas holidays, let me tell you. And by the end of that watching spree and the turn of the new year, I had finally, irrevocably, turned from a casual viewer into a fan who was dumbstruck by all the storytelling potential this not-so-common-after-all show offered me.
It took me about five weeks until I had caught up with every single previous episode released on DVD (even though those weeks were structured around a very demanding full-time job). And then I suddenly found that my involvement didn't stop at watching and re-watching. For the first time in seven years, I started writing again. For the first time in fifteen years, I picked up a pencil and started drawing again. And I finally put my Photoshop knowledge to good use and slaved over NCIS fan edits.
For the first time in many years, my brain felt alive again, and to my great surprise I soon found myself no longer stuck in the crippling depressions that had followed me around like a dark cloud for such a long time... all thanks to one very special character, who had gone through the darkest and most challenging of times, but had still made it out alive and mostly sane and healthy. Ziva was... inspiring, to put it mildly. Inspiring for all of us who ever felt like she did towards the end of that particular season: betrayed and lied to by the ones she trusted most. Stuck in an ugly mess and tangled, conflicting emotions with no discernible way out. And it tickled my own emotions in a special way to see that despite the misunderstandings, despite the painful parting, despite the lies and the mistakes and the bad times between them, there was still one good man who had her six. It may sound cliché, but that stupid procedural was something that suddenly gave me... hope. Hope that not all may be lost, even when you think it's over. Hope that there's someone to catch you after all, even when you stumble. Hope that maybe, just maybe... you are not quite as alone as you thought you were.
Later, when I met other fans online, I found to my surprise that I wasn't alone in feeling like this. Many, many others had been pulled in by the unsettling season six finale and the astounding season seven opener, which is still considered to be one of the best episodes of the show's whole run by most of the fans. And many of the people I met online had reacted to that story in much the same way I did: it got them through the dark times. It made them stronger. I can safely say that in all my years of loving television, I have never come across another character that made so many people say, "She helped me. She inspired me. She taught me." And Ziva David is inspiring, indeed -- constantly changing, ever evolving, growing, searching, learning. Never giving up, never bowing to circumstance, always keeping her chin up proudly, and standing up for what she believes. She came onto the show so young that at first she felt like our favorite, bratty little sister, and we made the journey of growth and the pains of young adulthood and first love and falling out with her family along with her.
The thing is, our feelings didn't end there. Although Cote de Pablo, the actress, and Ziva David, the character, are as different as day and night in some aspects... the woman behind the fictional character is to many fans just as inspiring as the woman she portrays. Even though she isn't quite as physically kick-ass in life as her on-screen alter ego, she is just as strong and decisive and stands up for what she believes in. Her caring, grounded attitude is very unconventional for a well-known actress; her unabashed love for her family and friends and her down-to-earth values that put loved ones and privacy before popularity and the job are rare in these times. They are deeply inspiring to many, many fans -- and especially to thousands of young girls all over the world. NCIS is often classified as a show for the older demographic, but my years spent with other fans of this show have shown me one thing: whether you're 14 or pushing 60, this show and especially this character touch most of us in just the same way. They (quite literally) bridge generation gaps, and every single one of us has learned a thing or two during our brush with Ziva David. We learned to be better. We learned, to borrow Tennyson's words, "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". We learned that family is more than DNA. And that is the biggest reason the character of Ziva became irreplaceable, not just to Tony DiNozzo, but to millions of viewers across the globe: her departure from the show feels indeed as if our favorite sister has gone away. The one girl we looked up to, the character we depended on when we felt down and needed to borrow strength from someone else... she's suddenly no longer there. And our world is no longer quite like it used to be.
It's a reality that feels just wrong in my head, you know. It's a 180 degree turn from the direction this character and her whole story was evolving into. And it simply doesn't work, not from a fan's perspective, not from a writer's perspective, not from a psychological perspective. It defies every single thing we ever learned about Ziva David over the past eight years. The woman we -- much like Tony DiNozzo -- lost our hearts to? She would never just run away without even saying goodbye. And that, essentially, is the reason why I suddenly find myself engulfed in fannish activism and fighting hard to get her back on my once-favorite show: because this cheap cop-out of attempted "closure" was not an appropriate end, not for this character and certainly not for her emotional relationship with the rest of the team. We expected more from Ziva. No, wait - we expected more *for* Ziva. We expected that, one day, if she'd hang in just a little longer, she'd get her reward for all the tough times and the trauma and everything she has lost over the years. We expected that, one day, she would get the "something permanent" she desperately longed for. But instead of that, she was taken away, and that simply doesn't feel like a good moral to a story we've been listening to with bated breath.
After all the crap she has gone through, Ziva deserves better. And yes, we, the fans, deserve better as well. Because the way a story ends always directly influences your emotional reaction and your loyalty to it. Give a story the "right" ending, and people will not only think fondly of it, but revisit it over and over again, for many years. But give a story an ending that feels "off" to the audience... boom, that's it. They will instantly forget every bit of love they ever had for a show. Just like that, they will feel cheated, hurt, and foolish instead. Foolish for believing this could, against all odds, turn out well. Foolish for *hoping*.
And see, that's the thing. That's exactly why this particular turn in Ziva's story currently hurts so many of us who invested emotions into this character over the years: because all the hope she gave us before is suddenly... negated, for lack of a better word. And we're back to feeling like life will never give *us* a happy ending after all, because if even Ziva doesn't get one, when she deserves it so much... No. No, I really don't like what the storyteller is trying to deliver here. Because, just for emphasis, let me repeat again: Ziva David deserves better. And regardless what young actress they bring in to sit at her desk from now in, I can assure you that people will never bond with her in the same way they bonded with Ziva -- and Cote.
Our youth is subjected to many influences that are hard to control and hard to understand, both for parents and for people like me who don't have children. Actresses with surgically "improved" appearances are commonplace these days, as is editing them slimmer and "prettier". Stars crumble under pressure and succumb to drugs and alcohol. Pop stars provoke teenagers to atrocious statements. Religious fanatics of all flavor spread hatred on a whole new level. It's a world that scares me at times because it seems so insane and out of control and I have no idea where it will go. Maybe that's why I am always so relieved when I remember that yes, even in these disturbing times, there are still a few strong, albeit fictional characters like Ziva David and caring people like Cote de Pablo out there. And then I'm always glad that many, many young people are indeed influenced by them and not the anorexic, drug-abusing star next door, and so they will be thinking instead of twerking.
There are too few Ziva Davids in the world of entertainment, but there is a desperate need for them. And it's not just the show's storytelling that will suffer greatly from her loss. As her on-screen partner said it himself in one of the most beloved episodes of the show: Ziva David is not replaceable. And the void she leaves behind can never be filled... until CBS decides to bring her back. Now here's something to look forward to.
If you miss Ziva and want her back, please help us by making your voice heard. Visit bringbackcote.com for information on how you can get involved. Even a simple email helps.
I'm okay, though. No, really. I'm not a screaming, wailing teenager, which is probably what most people associate with the term whenever it comes up. I'm in my early forties, I have a good, fascinating, challenging job, a somewhat functional Real Life and friends, I'm mostly healthy (even though my dietary habits aren't always), and for quite some time I managed all of that while not residing in my mom's basement. I still dig books, games, movies, and TV shows with a fierce passion... and that's where the fangirl part kicks in: I really do love my fictional crack a lot. And my love doesn't stop at mere consumption. I like to write about the things I love, I regularly analyze them down to the deepest hidden meaning of the most fleeting glance between two characters, I waste countless hours on abusing pencils and pens to create drawings of my favorites, and I wrestle with photo-editing software on a regular basis. I'm also a cosplayer every now and then. And yet, I never see a dime for any of those things that often amount to hard work. (Quite the contrary, actually -- I hesitate to add up the time and money I poured into my passionate fan-self over the years. Now *that's* a thing that actually gives me a good reason to cringe...)
I *was* a teenager when I first fell in love with feeling fannish, mind you -- not the screaming, wailing kind, though, more the introvert who preferred to be home and comfy over going out with... well, screaming, wailing teenagers. I grew up with a passionate love for television, starting out on an old black and white television set that gave me "Kimba the White Lion". Later, countless hours of joyful consumerism went into shows like "Simon & Simon", "Magnum", and "The Professionals". Early spouts of "shipping" (the fannish joy in seeing two characters interact in a "relationshippy" way) happened long before I knew what that term meant -- heck, before it was even coined -- and so shows like "Hart to Hart" and "Remington Steele" added a special flavor to my fannish youth. The flavors changed over time, and my own tastes along with them, but one thing never changed: my deep attachment to well-written fictional characters and the multitude of reasons I would suddenly find myself attached to them, one way or another. If anything, that special kind of attraction grew more meaningful the older I got, because over time I had learned a lot about things like writing techniques, character building, human interaction and psychology, and subsequently I understood a lot more about analyzing context and subtext and figuring out an author's intentions. Second-guessing things turned simple consumerism into something way more interesting -- and way more satisfying on an intellectual level, even when the object of my affection is a cheap, trashy, mass-market product, simply because these days I no longer have to rely on defining it as fun vs. not fun. I have learned to articulate quite easily why I like some things and have almost allergic reactions to others. And I found that most of the time I actually have much better reasons than mere gut feelings for liking or disliking something.
Over time, I fell more and more for genre shows, simply because they gave my brain more to process. Shows like Quantum Leap, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, and Farscape... oh boy, those sure left their mark on me, let me tell you! They were so much more... daring than the average procedural. So much more intriguing. They went to the dark places and touched the (emotional) challenges of our lives. And they offered me characters that felt, strangely, a lot more like actual persons than what you see in most prime time entertainment shows. So, imagine my surprise when almost four years ago I suddenly found myself entranced in a way I had never encountered before by nothing other than... a procedural.
People like to say that some things do get better with age, and NCIS seems to be one of these things: in its tenth season, when other shows have long started their inevitable decline in quality and ratings, an average of 21.34 million viewers propelled NCIS to the number one spot in the list of most-watched TV shows in the US. The show also broke its own previous record and raked in a new all-time series high of 22.86 million viewers with the episode "Shiva". It's not common for a mere crime show. Then again, NCIS has never been a common crime show. Even in its early years, when the characters were still a bit more stiff and the focus was a little heavier on the crime of the week, the show was at its most intriguing whenever it strayed off the strictly procedural path and gave us raw emotions instead -- something (or someone) to connect to. Over the years, that recipe was deliberately enhanced by the creators, and the show got more daring and direct in its approach, especially after the addition of a new female character that would soon prove to be much more than a mere replacement for an old team mate: Mossad liaison officer Ziva David.
Ziva was unlike any other character I have seen in my 40-something years of television addiction. She was sassy, mindnumbingly pretty, and she certainly didn't censor her opinions. That last part alone was a refreshing change from the average (US) crime show heroine, who suddenly seemed just that in comparison: average. No special flavor to most of them, except for a scripted trauma here and there. Nothing that really distinguished one girl agent from the other. Ziva stood out, though, from the first moment she sauntered into the bullpen and asked Tony if he was having phone sex. There was a certain spark about her, something that tickled me, the casual viewer who usually abhors crime shows these days, on a gut level. That woman was excitingly different from the bland, formulaic character recipes TV dishes out so often for the viewers, and very soon it would begin to show that her addition shaped the show itself in a new, exciting way as well. With her on board and the intriguing Mossad and spy background she had, the authors soon got a lot bolder and more experimental. They went to storylines they probably would never have touched before -- storylines that focused heavily on character development and emotional entanglements instead of mere crime solving. And it seemed to be a path that struck a chord with the audience: the ratings climbed slowly and steadily. By the time I and many others got enthralled by the show, it had managed to climb up among the most-watched scripted TV shows in the US, from 26th in season one to 5th place in season six -- not a bad accomplishment for a point in their timeline when most other shows have long gone stale and/or gotten cancelled.
The end of season six changed things, brutally, and the year 2009 didn't just end with Ziva being held captive by a terrorist cell in Somalia with little hope of survival - it also ended with this casual viewer staring at the end credits of the season finale in shock and completely numb. It was something I hadn't expected at all. Not from the emotionally safe confines of primetime TV. I slept badly that night. But for the first time in months it weren't my own problems that ran through my head and kept me awake -- it was the fate of a certain Israeli officer, whom I had grown to like a lot more than I'd realized before. The next day, I searched online, to see if she would even be in the next season. (Being in Germany, we usually get to see the episodes about six months later than the US audience, after all.) When I had breathed my sigh of relief, I found that I really, really needed to know how this played out. I needed to know so badly that I searched for a site to greedily devour the ten additional episodes that had aired in the US by then online. It took me less than a week. At the end of that week, I went and watched fan-edited videos online for days -- by far the most fun I ever had over the Christmas holidays, let me tell you. And by the end of that watching spree and the turn of the new year, I had finally, irrevocably, turned from a casual viewer into a fan who was dumbstruck by all the storytelling potential this not-so-common-after-all show offered me.
It took me about five weeks until I had caught up with every single previous episode released on DVD (even though those weeks were structured around a very demanding full-time job). And then I suddenly found that my involvement didn't stop at watching and re-watching. For the first time in seven years, I started writing again. For the first time in fifteen years, I picked up a pencil and started drawing again. And I finally put my Photoshop knowledge to good use and slaved over NCIS fan edits.
For the first time in many years, my brain felt alive again, and to my great surprise I soon found myself no longer stuck in the crippling depressions that had followed me around like a dark cloud for such a long time... all thanks to one very special character, who had gone through the darkest and most challenging of times, but had still made it out alive and mostly sane and healthy. Ziva was... inspiring, to put it mildly. Inspiring for all of us who ever felt like she did towards the end of that particular season: betrayed and lied to by the ones she trusted most. Stuck in an ugly mess and tangled, conflicting emotions with no discernible way out. And it tickled my own emotions in a special way to see that despite the misunderstandings, despite the painful parting, despite the lies and the mistakes and the bad times between them, there was still one good man who had her six. It may sound cliché, but that stupid procedural was something that suddenly gave me... hope. Hope that not all may be lost, even when you think it's over. Hope that there's someone to catch you after all, even when you stumble. Hope that maybe, just maybe... you are not quite as alone as you thought you were.
Later, when I met other fans online, I found to my surprise that I wasn't alone in feeling like this. Many, many others had been pulled in by the unsettling season six finale and the astounding season seven opener, which is still considered to be one of the best episodes of the show's whole run by most of the fans. And many of the people I met online had reacted to that story in much the same way I did: it got them through the dark times. It made them stronger. I can safely say that in all my years of loving television, I have never come across another character that made so many people say, "She helped me. She inspired me. She taught me." And Ziva David is inspiring, indeed -- constantly changing, ever evolving, growing, searching, learning. Never giving up, never bowing to circumstance, always keeping her chin up proudly, and standing up for what she believes. She came onto the show so young that at first she felt like our favorite, bratty little sister, and we made the journey of growth and the pains of young adulthood and first love and falling out with her family along with her.
The thing is, our feelings didn't end there. Although Cote de Pablo, the actress, and Ziva David, the character, are as different as day and night in some aspects... the woman behind the fictional character is to many fans just as inspiring as the woman she portrays. Even though she isn't quite as physically kick-ass in life as her on-screen alter ego, she is just as strong and decisive and stands up for what she believes in. Her caring, grounded attitude is very unconventional for a well-known actress; her unabashed love for her family and friends and her down-to-earth values that put loved ones and privacy before popularity and the job are rare in these times. They are deeply inspiring to many, many fans -- and especially to thousands of young girls all over the world. NCIS is often classified as a show for the older demographic, but my years spent with other fans of this show have shown me one thing: whether you're 14 or pushing 60, this show and especially this character touch most of us in just the same way. They (quite literally) bridge generation gaps, and every single one of us has learned a thing or two during our brush with Ziva David. We learned to be better. We learned, to borrow Tennyson's words, "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield". We learned that family is more than DNA. And that is the biggest reason the character of Ziva became irreplaceable, not just to Tony DiNozzo, but to millions of viewers across the globe: her departure from the show feels indeed as if our favorite sister has gone away. The one girl we looked up to, the character we depended on when we felt down and needed to borrow strength from someone else... she's suddenly no longer there. And our world is no longer quite like it used to be.
It's a reality that feels just wrong in my head, you know. It's a 180 degree turn from the direction this character and her whole story was evolving into. And it simply doesn't work, not from a fan's perspective, not from a writer's perspective, not from a psychological perspective. It defies every single thing we ever learned about Ziva David over the past eight years. The woman we -- much like Tony DiNozzo -- lost our hearts to? She would never just run away without even saying goodbye. And that, essentially, is the reason why I suddenly find myself engulfed in fannish activism and fighting hard to get her back on my once-favorite show: because this cheap cop-out of attempted "closure" was not an appropriate end, not for this character and certainly not for her emotional relationship with the rest of the team. We expected more from Ziva. No, wait - we expected more *for* Ziva. We expected that, one day, if she'd hang in just a little longer, she'd get her reward for all the tough times and the trauma and everything she has lost over the years. We expected that, one day, she would get the "something permanent" she desperately longed for. But instead of that, she was taken away, and that simply doesn't feel like a good moral to a story we've been listening to with bated breath.
After all the crap she has gone through, Ziva deserves better. And yes, we, the fans, deserve better as well. Because the way a story ends always directly influences your emotional reaction and your loyalty to it. Give a story the "right" ending, and people will not only think fondly of it, but revisit it over and over again, for many years. But give a story an ending that feels "off" to the audience... boom, that's it. They will instantly forget every bit of love they ever had for a show. Just like that, they will feel cheated, hurt, and foolish instead. Foolish for believing this could, against all odds, turn out well. Foolish for *hoping*.
And see, that's the thing. That's exactly why this particular turn in Ziva's story currently hurts so many of us who invested emotions into this character over the years: because all the hope she gave us before is suddenly... negated, for lack of a better word. And we're back to feeling like life will never give *us* a happy ending after all, because if even Ziva doesn't get one, when she deserves it so much... No. No, I really don't like what the storyteller is trying to deliver here. Because, just for emphasis, let me repeat again: Ziva David deserves better. And regardless what young actress they bring in to sit at her desk from now in, I can assure you that people will never bond with her in the same way they bonded with Ziva -- and Cote.
Our youth is subjected to many influences that are hard to control and hard to understand, both for parents and for people like me who don't have children. Actresses with surgically "improved" appearances are commonplace these days, as is editing them slimmer and "prettier". Stars crumble under pressure and succumb to drugs and alcohol. Pop stars provoke teenagers to atrocious statements. Religious fanatics of all flavor spread hatred on a whole new level. It's a world that scares me at times because it seems so insane and out of control and I have no idea where it will go. Maybe that's why I am always so relieved when I remember that yes, even in these disturbing times, there are still a few strong, albeit fictional characters like Ziva David and caring people like Cote de Pablo out there. And then I'm always glad that many, many young people are indeed influenced by them and not the anorexic, drug-abusing star next door, and so they will be thinking instead of twerking.
There are too few Ziva Davids in the world of entertainment, but there is a desperate need for them. And it's not just the show's storytelling that will suffer greatly from her loss. As her on-screen partner said it himself in one of the most beloved episodes of the show: Ziva David is not replaceable. And the void she leaves behind can never be filled... until CBS decides to bring her back. Now here's something to look forward to.
If you miss Ziva and want her back, please help us by making your voice heard. Visit bringbackcote.com for information on how you can get involved. Even a simple email helps.