Enemy on the Hill

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Enemy on the Hill

NCIS is a fascinating show, and one that I watch nearly weekly. The best part is the interaction between the characters, and remarkably, it only rarely seems forced or strained. The combination of great acting and great scripting keeps me coming back for more.

This week's episode is titled Enemy on the Hill and unfolds a complicated plot by a political advisor to hide political donations, involving 2 reciprocal murder attempts, one of which fails due to random chance, and one of which succeeds. The trick revolves around a fictional third person. The episode is further complicated by a plot line involving fan favorite Abby, who is invited to donate an organ, but winds up finding out about her background instead. The filling out of backstory is thus nicely rotated about the characters; we have heard about the backstory of Gibbs, McGee, Tony, Dr. Mallard, and Ziva, but Abby's backstory has never been fleshed out until now. While the linking of the story to the main plot seems very forced, as opposed to last week's deux ex machina which created a more organic transition (as the backstory was linked to the case) it did provide some information for a character who was not previously grounded.

Tony's character had an inexplicable bounciness during part of today's episode. While he is normally exuberant and frequently annoyingly prone to quoting popular movies, the distinct change does not seem to fit very well with the rest of his behavior. Previous shows explained his personality changes quite well; for example, an episode in which he was somber and professional explained it by saying that he was going through a period of maturation based on a revelation about a previous temporary romantic partner. However, I do not feel that this episode did it quite as well.

As always, the technology depicted in the show did wild and unlikely things. While the show is generally well-researched, I usually find it a little disconcerting. But as someone who is familiar with much of the general abilities of the equipment depicted on the show, I feel that it contributes to the well known CSI effect, in which juries expect more out of evidence presented in court cases than is actually possible, and are less likely to engage in speculation about the most likely possibility instead.

All in all, I felt this episode was fairly mediocre; while the central plot of the murder mystery was excellent, even if it did involve some unlikely errors based on the previous description of the agents, the exposition of Abby's background seemed forced in to me.

NCIS Watcher
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:17:20 +0000

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