NCIS 7x14 and 7x15 & Stuff
Life kind sucks for me at the moment, but I'm not going to go into much detail because ... well ... it's immaterial. No time (or inspiration) to do real reviews regarding "Masquerade" or "Jack Knife" but I'll provide a broad overview of my thoughts.
"Masquerade" was ... adequate; the lawyer chick served no real purpose but to get in the way and be stupid, the bad guy was utterly predictable (if there's a stand-in for Blackwater on a procedural these days, there's a better than 200% chance they're bad guys), and the whole thing just felt stale. The Tony/Ziva scene in the warehouse more than made up for the fecal matter that was "Jet Lag", although the complete lack of chemistry between Mark Harmon & Rena Sofer made the whole Gibbs/Hart thing (whatever the hell its supposed to be) really hard to swallow. It could have been better, it could have been worse.
"Jack Knife," on the other hand, simply sucked. The story was nonsensical at best, with Fornell being utterly wasted (his interactions with Gibbs were truly the only interesting part of this semi-wreck of an episode) and the inclusion of Damon Werth was there to provide the barest excuse to link a stupid plot to NCIS. Plus, he showed up to inject even more unnecessary angst into the already overblown Tony/Ziva crap which basically put a final nail in the coffin of that ship to me for the simple reason I've already seen this fucking plot. It was that stupid Rivkin bullshit from last year - you know, Tony gets jealous of Ziva and some random guy which leads to rank stupidity all around - so realizing that they're already recycling that plot frankly pisses me off. Seriously, if the writers don't have the fucking balls to actually GO somewhere with the Tony/Ziva thing as opposed to this ridiculous idling in neutral for five years, I wish they'd just end it entirely. Let Ziva get together with Damon the juice head, bring Jeanne back (since apparently she's the only woman Tony has dated who hasn't spent 5 years sending him mixed messages) and just MOVE THE FUCK ON.
So it's official. I'm done with Tony/Ziva.
Anymore, Ziva is starting to come off as a fucking tease; how many 'relationships' has she had since the end of season 3 to Tony's single one? Well ... there was the radiation guy, Roy (not enough information to determine if she slept with him or not). And then that serial killer she shot in the teaser of "Recoil" (it's entirely within her character to have slept with the dude to gain intelligence, and if you track down her interviews at the time about the episode, Cote clearly states that Ziva was seducing the guy to gain info.) And then that Hoffman guy she slept with while she was busy being wildly out-of-character (although given how she was written at the end of season 6, maybe it wasn't as OOC as I thought.) And then she had her moment with Werth in "Corporal Punishment" and it's implied with the season 7 eps involving him (or at least I'm inferring) that they kept in touch post that ep (and probably slept together, knowing her predilections.) If it hadn't been outright stated in season 6's "Knockout" that Tony hadn't (and likely still hasn't) slept with anyone since Jeanne, I'd assume that she & DiNozzo had one last night after the team broke up in season 5, but that's been tossed out, so disregard. And then Rivkin, whom she apparently jumped into bed with days after returning to Israel. Oh, and if you go by "Bounce," it's strongly implied that she slept with that black Marine who turned out to be a bad guy (imagine that) during the period between season 3 and 4. Come season 7 and, despite having spent the summer in the clutches of jihadists, she's flirting with Tony (and with an implication she may have done more than just flirt with him in Paris), or Chad Dunham in that episode with Lady Deathstrike (in front of Tony, no less), and now Werth (again in front of Tony.)
Yet Tony is the one who is accused of being promiscuous. Seriously, can anyone point me to the last time Tony actually flirted with a woman other than Ziva? I saw someone make the point that he's "basically restructured his entire life around her" since season 7 began, yet she continues to play this game.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against women who enjoy sex and Tony has been written like a bipolar freakazoid almost as much as she has, but I'm sick to fucking death of the "Jealous Tony" plot. It sucked in season 4 when it was "Jealous Ziva," and it sucked last year when it revolved around Rivkin, and it sucks now. Is this the only thing those retarded monkeys in Hollywood can actually write? Is it really that difficult to treat the audience like they have functioning brain cells and/or taste? I ask myself these questions...
And then I immediately find people online clamoring for an official Damon/Ziva pairing because they're lemmings who swallow this crap.
Sigh. No wonder I can't find a lick of motivation to write more "Transitional States." It's hard to focus on something when you so actively loath what the show proper has turned into.
Well, that and I don't have any fucking free time at the moment, but that's secondary.
"Masquerade" was ... adequate; the lawyer chick served no real purpose but to get in the way and be stupid, the bad guy was utterly predictable (if there's a stand-in for Blackwater on a procedural these days, there's a better than 200% chance they're bad guys), and the whole thing just felt stale. The Tony/Ziva scene in the warehouse more than made up for the fecal matter that was "Jet Lag", although the complete lack of chemistry between Mark Harmon & Rena Sofer made the whole Gibbs/Hart thing (whatever the hell its supposed to be) really hard to swallow. It could have been better, it could have been worse.
"Jack Knife," on the other hand, simply sucked. The story was nonsensical at best, with Fornell being utterly wasted (his interactions with Gibbs were truly the only interesting part of this semi-wreck of an episode) and the inclusion of Damon Werth was there to provide the barest excuse to link a stupid plot to NCIS. Plus, he showed up to inject even more unnecessary angst into the already overblown Tony/Ziva crap which basically put a final nail in the coffin of that ship to me for the simple reason I've already seen this fucking plot. It was that stupid Rivkin bullshit from last year - you know, Tony gets jealous of Ziva and some random guy which leads to rank stupidity all around - so realizing that they're already recycling that plot frankly pisses me off. Seriously, if the writers don't have the fucking balls to actually GO somewhere with the Tony/Ziva thing as opposed to this ridiculous idling in neutral for five years, I wish they'd just end it entirely. Let Ziva get together with Damon the juice head, bring Jeanne back (since apparently she's the only woman Tony has dated who hasn't spent 5 years sending him mixed messages) and just MOVE THE FUCK ON.
So it's official. I'm done with Tony/Ziva.
Anymore, Ziva is starting to come off as a fucking tease; how many 'relationships' has she had since the end of season 3 to Tony's single one? Well ... there was the radiation guy, Roy (not enough information to determine if she slept with him or not). And then that serial killer she shot in the teaser of "Recoil" (it's entirely within her character to have slept with the dude to gain intelligence, and if you track down her interviews at the time about the episode, Cote clearly states that Ziva was seducing the guy to gain info.) And then that Hoffman guy she slept with while she was busy being wildly out-of-character (although given how she was written at the end of season 6, maybe it wasn't as OOC as I thought.) And then she had her moment with Werth in "Corporal Punishment" and it's implied with the season 7 eps involving him (or at least I'm inferring) that they kept in touch post that ep (and probably slept together, knowing her predilections.) If it hadn't been outright stated in season 6's "Knockout" that Tony hadn't (and likely still hasn't) slept with anyone since Jeanne, I'd assume that she & DiNozzo had one last night after the team broke up in season 5, but that's been tossed out, so disregard. And then Rivkin, whom she apparently jumped into bed with days after returning to Israel. Oh, and if you go by "Bounce," it's strongly implied that she slept with that black Marine who turned out to be a bad guy (imagine that) during the period between season 3 and 4. Come season 7 and, despite having spent the summer in the clutches of jihadists, she's flirting with Tony (and with an implication she may have done more than just flirt with him in Paris), or Chad Dunham in that episode with Lady Deathstrike (in front of Tony, no less), and now Werth (again in front of Tony.)
Yet Tony is the one who is accused of being promiscuous. Seriously, can anyone point me to the last time Tony actually flirted with a woman other than Ziva? I saw someone make the point that he's "basically restructured his entire life around her" since season 7 began, yet she continues to play this game.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against women who enjoy sex and Tony has been written like a bipolar freakazoid almost as much as she has, but I'm sick to fucking death of the "Jealous Tony" plot. It sucked in season 4 when it was "Jealous Ziva," and it sucked last year when it revolved around Rivkin, and it sucks now. Is this the only thing those retarded monkeys in Hollywood can actually write? Is it really that difficult to treat the audience like they have functioning brain cells and/or taste? I ask myself these questions...
And then I immediately find people online clamoring for an official Damon/Ziva pairing because they're lemmings who swallow this crap.
Sigh. No wonder I can't find a lick of motivation to write more "Transitional States." It's hard to focus on something when you so actively loath what the show proper has turned into.
Well, that and I don't have any fucking free time at the moment, but that's secondary.