NCIS Housekeeping - My sorta review
When a story (regardless of medium) can keep me engaged from start to finish, I call that a well-told story and move on. I rarely worry too much about the holes that come to me after the fact. Though, those post-consumption holes will often determine if I read or watch it again. I greatly prefer things I can enjoy multiple times.
My biggest problem with Housekeeping was that it didn’t keep me engaged *during* the episode. I was so excited about the premise. This was an arc I was looking forward to seeing the resolution of. Then I found myself distracted by a character’s hair rather than listening to two characters’ dialog simply because the dialog had no impact on the story. And for me to get distracted by a hair style is, um, well, it takes a lot.
When I see episodes like this (regardless of series), I have to wonder if they just didn’t have enough A-story to go around (criminal, given the strong potential for this arc) or if Someone From On High, and out of the creative chain of command, decreed that the B-story needed to happen. The end result is usually a mess, as this was.
The only tension or excitement I felt in the entire episode was during that one scene between Tony and EJ. Michael Weatherly and Sarah Jane Morris are *so* good together. Even though I wanted more in terms of information from it, the emotion was excellent - it was the kind of scene MW never gets enough of. What kills me is that he seems to get them mostly in these uneven episodes. It’s almost as if they know they have a weak story, so they’re going to use his incredible strength as an actor to try and pull the story’s fat out of the fire. While I’m sure that’s gratifying to a point, it’s *got* to be aggravating over time. His skills are so under-utilized.
The climax was, anti-climactic. I never felt any threat at all. I suppose that could have been the direction rather than the writing, but I suspect not. Anyone can have an off episode, but Terrence O’Hara’s track record is better than that.
B-story killed A-story’s pacing (heard Video Killed the Radio Star yesterday - sue me LOL).
Mostly, I spent the episode wishing for a red pen.
“Why is this conversation in here? It has nothing to do with the story.”
“This is not how this character would respond in this situation.”
“This character would never do this.”
“It was obvious that [spoiler] was going to happen from the moment the scene opened. Fix it.”
And so on, and so forth. If a friend had given me a manuscript with these kinds of problems, I would have marked it up and sent it back for major revisions. The biggest problem with Housekeeping is there wasn’t enough story on the page… and there should have been. Instead we got filler - Mexico (please, please, no more, we beg you), relationships, non-relationships, weird conversations from and to nowhere. Where was the killer stalking his prey? Where was the danger? Where was the suspense?
This season as been SO well done, it was just a real shame to see such excellent performances wasted on such a weak script.
My biggest problem with Housekeeping was that it didn’t keep me engaged *during* the episode. I was so excited about the premise. This was an arc I was looking forward to seeing the resolution of. Then I found myself distracted by a character’s hair rather than listening to two characters’ dialog simply because the dialog had no impact on the story. And for me to get distracted by a hair style is, um, well, it takes a lot.
When I see episodes like this (regardless of series), I have to wonder if they just didn’t have enough A-story to go around (criminal, given the strong potential for this arc) or if Someone From On High, and out of the creative chain of command, decreed that the B-story needed to happen. The end result is usually a mess, as this was.
The only tension or excitement I felt in the entire episode was during that one scene between Tony and EJ. Michael Weatherly and Sarah Jane Morris are *so* good together. Even though I wanted more in terms of information from it, the emotion was excellent - it was the kind of scene MW never gets enough of. What kills me is that he seems to get them mostly in these uneven episodes. It’s almost as if they know they have a weak story, so they’re going to use his incredible strength as an actor to try and pull the story’s fat out of the fire. While I’m sure that’s gratifying to a point, it’s *got* to be aggravating over time. His skills are so under-utilized.
The climax was, anti-climactic. I never felt any threat at all. I suppose that could have been the direction rather than the writing, but I suspect not. Anyone can have an off episode, but Terrence O’Hara’s track record is better than that.
B-story killed A-story’s pacing (heard Video Killed the Radio Star yesterday - sue me LOL).
Mostly, I spent the episode wishing for a red pen.
“Why is this conversation in here? It has nothing to do with the story.”
“This is not how this character would respond in this situation.”
“This character would never do this.”
“It was obvious that [spoiler] was going to happen from the moment the scene opened. Fix it.”
And so on, and so forth. If a friend had given me a manuscript with these kinds of problems, I would have marked it up and sent it back for major revisions. The biggest problem with Housekeeping is there wasn’t enough story on the page… and there should have been. Instead we got filler - Mexico (please, please, no more, we beg you), relationships, non-relationships, weird conversations from and to nowhere. Where was the killer stalking his prey? Where was the danger? Where was the suspense?
This season as been SO well done, it was just a real shame to see such excellent performances wasted on such a weak script.