OMG OMG NCIS OMG.

[roga]

Okay, how did none of you tell me that the last show I had left to catch up on, NCIS, had for the past two months been building up a GIANT ZIVA ARC that ended with a season finale titled "Aliyah" and included HALF AN EPISODE TAKING PLACE IN TEL AVIV? HOW DID I ONLY JUST BECOME AWARE OF THIS

Comments

[sholio]

*laughs* You know, all throughout the last few episodes I've been thinking "I cannot wait to read roga's reaction to this storyline" ... and then, no reactions! But now, there is one! And it was just as much fun as I thought it'd be. :D

Ziva: "We don't have spring. Israel is a desert."

hahahaha, that line specifically, I really wanted to see the top of your head fall off, especially since you'd just got done posting all your pictures of spring flowers and so forth ...

Subject: Third grade class trip to the agricultural farm

Good morning, dear parents;
This upcoming Monday, in honor of Tu Bishvat, we will have an activity in the agricultural farm.

NO REALLY? *dies* (I always used to love the "English" in background shots of anime for much this reason. SO MUCH INAPPROPRIATE HILARITY.)

I really need more than just one NCIS icon.

[roga]

Heeee, man, if only I'd have known, I'd have been on top of this so fast. But it was fun to catch up on too without having to wait a week each time, and I was watching these in the middle of the night literally biting my hand to muffle the squees.

GOD THOSE EMAILS. Where did they get such random, random emails? Written backwards? I am so curious how to make the rest of that cake.

I used to have a bunch of NCIS icons, and now I have none! This must be remedied ASAP.

(Also, in general: eeeeee finale! Tony and Ziva and Gibbs had better make up within the first 5 episodes of next season, because I cannot handle this tension, I can't.)

[miss_porcupine]

I was waiting for you to flail around at this. :)

The fake Hebrew's pretty funny. They couldn't run something more relevant through Google Translator Tools or something?

To be fair, their version of "Tel Aviv" is no wackier than their version of "Greater DC", since both places ultimately end up looking just like a badly disguised LA. (The spinoff will thus end up being the most real-looking despite being the least plausible.)

Michael Nouri is, always and forever, That Dude From Flashdance.

[roga]

Michael Nouri is, always and forever, That Dude From Flashdance.

OH MY GOD THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S HIM. And now I can suddenly actually picture him as a field agent when he was young and dark curly haired and charming, wow.

And hee, see, I never think of how these locations look like to people who live there -- I've never thought of NCIS as being filmed in anything but DC, even though I know it's filmed in LA. But yeah, when you live there, you notice the small things, like the streetlights or the implausibility of red stairs. (Or the terrorist coded class trip invitations.)

The fake Hebrew is weird on so many levels, because not only the content of the emails themselves are totally random, but the letters themselves were written left to right. Which, okay, I can accept that as a software incompatibility. But the fact that the street signs are printed as mirror images of letters and backwards? ...weird.

But, you know, all that aside, *FLAIL*.

[miss_porcupine]

I live in (and deeply love) NYC. You want a comedy routine? Sit next to me while I watch an episode of CSI:NY and gripe. :)

[roga]

Hee. Actually, the last time that happened to me (before this) was watching Don't Mess With the Zohan -- and in that movie it was, in a way, even more annoying, because since the movie doesn't take itself seriously, it's ridiculous to gripe about the really small mistakes or misrepresentations -- it's Adam Sandler sipping in chocolate in hummus, for god's sake, there's no way to actually nitpick that.

[pwcorgigirl]

I watched the final episode on IMBD last night and now must -- as in as soon as freaking possible -- catch up on the whole arc. Gah, I remember when Michael Nouri was young and lean and sex on legs. Now he has this great leonine quality, like Frank Langella. Young tiger to old lion, I suppose.

I must admit that I mainly watch NCIS to see David McCallum. He gets his one scene and he absolutely sticks a perfect landing every time. It's like the Olympics of acting. :)

[roga]

Nouri is really great, here -- I expected to hate Ziva's father much more than I did, and a lot of that is that the actor's simply so likable.

I don't have a Man from U.N.C.L.E history so no fond memories from there, but I totally agree with you about Ducky. Especially his interaction with, well, the "kids"; priceless.

[sabrina_il]

OK SO:

1. In the Russian bit, the guy who is not the guy with the white hair (who I assume is a series regular) actually speaks recognizable Russian. His accent is similar to, say, how my half sisters speak. AND the Russian itself was obviously written by a nativish speaker or something. The older white-haired guy on the other hand - I DON'T EVEN KNOW O_o I did not know you could mangle a language to a level where WITH SUBTITLES I have no idea what you were trying to say. Stargate's Russian was more recognizable!

2. The reserve letters are a product of photoshop. That's how PS writes Hebrew letters by default. I guess no one over there realized Photoshop can't really handle Hebrew fonts without some wrangling? HAHAHA

3. I'm assuming there's an in-series reason why those emails are weird, because otherwise they seem like reasonable emails to have in one's inbox? Like, an invitation to a school function and random lol junkmail?

[roga]

the guy who is not the guy with the white hair

Haha, dude, that is Chris O'Donnell! I can't believe you don't recognize him! Okay, I kind of do believe it, because aside from the fact that he played Robin in the Batman movies which is entirely forgettable, the reason I love him is because he played my favorite version of D'Artagnan in the 1993 Disney film. Especially considering the other versions I was exposed to were a) very very old, or b) animated dogs. And no, I have not seen the Russian musical which is the One Perfect Adaptation of the book, and as you know I haven't read the book. Come to think of it, I also liked Jeremy Irons' depiction in the Main in the Iron Mask, but for me, Chris O'Donnell is the original. And now you can go ahead and accuse me of raping your childhood with that clip. (Just be sensitive when you ram into it, and remember that this is my childhood

[sabrina_il]

1. OMG THAT IS ROBIN! He is totally my mental image of Robin forever and ever. I thought his voice sounded familiar! But the youtube quality really wasn't very good.

2. OK I read "he played my favorite version of D'Artagnan in the 1993 Disney film" and then my head exploded a little and then I realized you'd taken endless lines after that line ANTICIPATING MY REACTION and HAHAHAHA BB &hearts ILU! :D Everything I might had to say is negated by the AWWWW of this moment.

3. I'm not going to watch that clip for emotional trauma reasons but I have seen virtually every version of every major Dumas work the West has ever produced, so I am well familiar with the Disney movie. And you know, I do have to say purely as a visual reference, Robin is a way hotter D'Artagnan than the guy I grew up with:

[roga]

He is a hot D'Artagnan! Probably why it'll take me time to get used to any less hot D'Artagnans.

My bad about Jeremy Irons; I saw the movie 10 years ago once, and it was the first movie I remember actually knowing who Jeremy Irons was. And just after Titanic, so possibly I wasn't paying too much attention to anyone other than Leo.

(Also, you know my musical tastes a little, so you probably won't be surprised to learn that the Rod/Sting/Bryan song features prominently on my iPod...)

5. Very much LOL.

6. And now I'm thinking: DAMN ITm why couldn't I have spammed random LA people at some point in the past? That could TOTALLY BEEN MY NAME UP THERE IN NCIS, tacked backwards at the bottom of an email about, like, I dunno. How to make chocolate matzah cake, whatever.

[meredith44]

Hee! I was compiling the links for the newsletter, saw this, and was greatly amused. It's interesting to see places that I know (I lived outside of Philadelphia for over a decade; Cold Case, that is so not Philadelphia) completely looking like LA instead of what they are supposed to be. I'm not really fluent in any other languages, though, so I miss the fun with that. (Actually, I have a question. I teach preschool, and all of the Jewish/Hebrew-speaking children I've had have called their fathers "Abba". Granted that is only about a dozen or so children, but still, it was enough that I wondered why Ziva would call her father something else. Is Abba really as common as I'm thinking?)

Anyway, this was very interesting and amusing. (And it was nice to read something from someone who didn't dislike the finale.) Thanks for sharing!

/procrastination, back to newsletter coding *grin*

[roga]

Hi! Hee, I am so with you on procrastination. To, like, insane degrees