NCIS and NCIS ORIGINS first episodes of the 2024 season or it maybe time to put the franchise out to pasture

I think the NCIS franchise is dying.

I watched the first two episodes of the shows this week and I’m largely ready to bail.

The first episode of the flagship show was okay. It survived because of the characters. The splitting up of the team in different directions that lead back together has been done to death. There was no suspense. The worst part of the episode was the introduction of the new big bad, a deputy director for NCIS  revealed seconds after the team realizes that he was a bad guy in bed with the Mexican drug cartels. It’s lazy plotting with crappy writing. It essentially sets the tone for the season and it means that we know where and how this is going to go. My thought is why bother to watch?

NCIS ORIGINS is the weakest NCIS show ever. Who thought this was a good idea? I say this in light of my really not liking NCIS SYDNEY.

After one episode I find that I am essentially done with the series and it’s spin offs.Why? Because it comes off as REACHER lite. Austin Stowell as Gibbs is much bigger than Mark Harmon and his closed lip attitude is not like the young Gibbs we saw in the original series. Additionally he wanders through the show not like Gibbs but Jack Reacher.

Outside of Lala Dominguez and Mike Franks all the other characters are weakly written and non-entities. Everyone seems like they have nothing to work with and are flailing about in the dark. It doesn’t help that the episodes essentially dump all the characters on us in rapid succession, not so much introducing them to us in a way that makes them stick, but as a challenge for us to retain everyone’s name. I don’t know if I like anyone because I don’t know anyone.  In all the other spin offs I fell into the series unexpectedly because I warmed to the characters, that didn’t happen here.

A huge problem is that there is zero effort to build the Gibbs character. He is stoney and says little. Any clues about him come from references cribbed from the original series.

Most troubling for both series was my absolute lack of desire to continue. When NCIS HAWAII’s first episode ended and I was uncertain about the direction of the show I liked the characters enough to continue for a few more. After the shows that aired Monday I’m done.

I’m disappointed I want to give up on ALL of the series.

The original series looks to be on the skids crappy plotting for the season.

SYDNEY has some characters, but the anemic budget and filming style coupled with wildly uneven writing makes it something I’d only watch if nothing else is on.

As for ORIGINS I have zero desire to continue.

Perhaps it’s time to hang it up and end the franchise… or at least find better writers