I like the bit where they could tell from the audio that the car went over a rail line
2 Reviews
Frustratingly written
lothos-370-69002028 July 2015
Warning: Spoilers
While the writing for NCIS got markedly better with each season, this is another earlish episode where poor writing was still very evident.
Don't get me wrong, overall I greatly enjoy the show, which is why I want to remark on a particular factor that was common in many episodes of the first few seasons, much to the detriment of the shows integrity.
Most of the episode follows the same pattern, crime, investigation, head slaps all round. This one, however has a number of frustrating issues. The first revolves around the way criminals are revealed to the audience. One of the characters the team meets is a victim of a car crime, but is treated with suspicion early on despite no one being aware of his criminal activity, which is revealed later. On its own this is not an issue as there is precedent for law enforcement to be thrown off by criminals reporting there cars stolen after using them in criminal acts, however this is frustrating because it happens so often. Instead of writing a good script which slowly leaves clues to the criminals identity, it is not only explained in a sentence or two, but we are also setup to expect it by the protagonists immediate dislike for said characters. Either Gibbs and co have esp, or have access to information the viewer is denied, neither of which is likely or good writing. I can only surmise that this tactic is supposed to bias the viewer against the criminal before he/ she is found out, however once you've seen it for the 10th time it becomes annoying. I love subtle clues to criminals identities left in plane site, but having main characters dislike as a precursor to their reveal is lazy. The identity of the kidnapper is revealed later, but no clues are given to his identity what so ever. While this is is annoying it not the worst instance of poor writing. The reason I picked this episode was the massive plot hole at the end. When it is revealed that the aforementioned criminal is a paedophile, he is captured and arrested in the final scene. What's wrong with that I here you ask, well on the surface of it nothing, bad man commits crime and goes to jail, hooray. However, he did not commit a crime, he was undoubtedly going to, and was shown as a paedophile by the woman who was abducted early on. The problem was, the actual victim was abducted by one of her co workers. So we have the NCIS agents take an instant ESP fuelled dislike to a man who's only crime they are aware of, at this point, is a victim of car crime. The kidnapper whom the team spends most of the episode chasing is revealed to be someone else. But for some reason they now have the paedophile making a run for it, supposedly because he was spooked by the earlier NCIS visit, and while I could stretch to believe that his online chat, discovered on the abductees laptop, was evidence, one of the other characters says flat out, that in most cases the criminals get away without prosecution. So ending the episode on the mans capture is an anti climax, as he is probably going to get away with based on information earlier in the episode.
As the show progressed scenes like this got fewer and the overall the writing improved, but even today, I have to suspend my disbelief on a semi regular basis due to what is just plain lazy writing.
Don't get me wrong, overall I greatly enjoy the show, which is why I want to remark on a particular factor that was common in many episodes of the first few seasons, much to the detriment of the shows integrity.
Most of the episode follows the same pattern, crime, investigation, head slaps all round. This one, however has a number of frustrating issues. The first revolves around the way criminals are revealed to the audience. One of the characters the team meets is a victim of a car crime, but is treated with suspicion early on despite no one being aware of his criminal activity, which is revealed later. On its own this is not an issue as there is precedent for law enforcement to be thrown off by criminals reporting there cars stolen after using them in criminal acts, however this is frustrating because it happens so often. Instead of writing a good script which slowly leaves clues to the criminals identity, it is not only explained in a sentence or two, but we are also setup to expect it by the protagonists immediate dislike for said characters. Either Gibbs and co have esp, or have access to information the viewer is denied, neither of which is likely or good writing. I can only surmise that this tactic is supposed to bias the viewer against the criminal before he/ she is found out, however once you've seen it for the 10th time it becomes annoying. I love subtle clues to criminals identities left in plane site, but having main characters dislike as a precursor to their reveal is lazy. The identity of the kidnapper is revealed later, but no clues are given to his identity what so ever. While this is is annoying it not the worst instance of poor writing. The reason I picked this episode was the massive plot hole at the end. When it is revealed that the aforementioned criminal is a paedophile, he is captured and arrested in the final scene. What's wrong with that I here you ask, well on the surface of it nothing, bad man commits crime and goes to jail, hooray. However, he did not commit a crime, he was undoubtedly going to, and was shown as a paedophile by the woman who was abducted early on. The problem was, the actual victim was abducted by one of her co workers. So we have the NCIS agents take an instant ESP fuelled dislike to a man who's only crime they are aware of, at this point, is a victim of car crime. The kidnapper whom the team spends most of the episode chasing is revealed to be someone else. But for some reason they now have the paedophile making a run for it, supposedly because he was spooked by the earlier NCIS visit, and while I could stretch to believe that his online chat, discovered on the abductees laptop, was evidence, one of the other characters says flat out, that in most cases the criminals get away without prosecution. So ending the episode on the mans capture is an anti climax, as he is probably going to get away with based on information earlier in the episode.
As the show progressed scenes like this got fewer and the overall the writing improved, but even today, I have to suspend my disbelief on a semi regular basis due to what is just plain lazy writing.
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