Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Tuesday is "NCIS" Night

My favorite new show of the season is Don Bellisario's "NCIS" (CBS Tuesdays, 8pm ET). Mark Harmon plays leader of a team of special agents tasked with investigating crimes involving or committed by military personnel. JAG's Harmon Rabb often sees NCIS agents as adversaries, similar to the rift portrayed between fictional police and FBI. In fact, the NCIS characters were introduced last season in an episode of "JAG" that saw Commander Rabb suspected of murder.

I've been a Harmon fan since SUMMER SCHOOL, in which he played substitute teacher Freddy Shoop opposite Kirstie Alley and a young Courtney Thorne-Smith. He went on to play CID Officer Jay Austin in THE PRESIDIO, and Chicago Det. Dicky Cobb, assigned to the D.A.'s office and specifically to attorney Tess Kaufman (Marlee Matlin) in NBC's "Reasonable Doubts."

Now a "veteran actor," Harmon brings a saltiness and complexity to Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Gibbs's team consists of former Secret Service Agent Kate Todd, former Baltimore Homicide cop Tony DiNozzo, forensic chemist Abby Sciutto, and M.E. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum). Not beholden to military courtesy, the teammates treat each other with refreshing irreverence, all the while wondering just what Gibbs's deal is.

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