Tony's Tuesday Review

[dragonheart]

Episode: 10.01 Extreme Prejudice
Caf-Pow Rating: 3.0/5
Words: 1026
Review: under the cut

 

I am glad that I am reviewing this episode a few weeks after it aired as it gives me the opportunity to take a step back and put a little perspective on it because for me this episode was a mixed bag of the good, the bad and the mediocre.

In recent memory I can’t remember an episode being more hyped than this one.

Granted, it was a season premiere and the tenth season at that, so I guess we should have expected the publicity machine to be in full tilt, but the amount of press preceding this episode was a lot more than I expected.  It seemed like every time we turned around there were spoilers, interviews, promo pictures, behind the scenes pictures and sneak peeks.  Now, anyone who knows me even the slightest, knows that I am a spoiler addict, love them, can’t get enough and they generally only make me more excited to see an episode, so you would think that I would have been in spoiler heaven, and I was… for awhile; but eventually the media spin machine even made me a little weary.

I think the heavy promoting and spoiling for this episode backfired somewhat as the expectations going in were pretty high, and we basically knew what was going to happen even if we didn’t know the details. 

Even though I have learned to take things from spoilers “with a grain of salt”, I have to admit I was pretty psyched for the episode.

Imagine my disappointment when it didn’t live up to the hype.

I am not saying that it was a bad episode – it was far from bad, but it wasn’t that great either – at least, not as great as we had been lead to believe that it would be, so just a warning that this review is going to tainted with a bit of that excitement deflating like a balloon feeling.

We really need to back up to the Season 9 finale to understand and appreciate the Season 10 premiere as it opens mere minutes after the finale ended.

Harper Dearing blew up the Navy Yard with a bomb planted inside Director Vance’s car that was parked directly in front of the building.  The bomb was discovered and Jonathan Cole tried to disarm it while the building was being evacuated.  He failed, the bomb exploded and the fate of our team would be unknown until the Season 10 premiere.

Only, that’s not how it worked – we knew they all survived, we even knew some of the circumstances of what happened to them due to spoiler frenzy.

I think TPTB wanted us all to wonder about McGee, but given the fact that BTS pictures for Season 10 episodes 2 and 3 showed him healthy and looking good before the season premiere pretty much let the cat out of the bag that whatever his injuries, they wouldn’t be serious and his recovery time would be minimal, so I really wasn’t shocked that the shard of glass in his stomach only required a few stitches and he was back to work right away.

We knew Ducky survived his heart attack, but the scene with him and Jimmy in the Florida hospital was still heart wrenching, I think that was probably my favorite scene of the episode; I only wish it had lasted longer.

Abby and Gibbs survived with just minor boo boos; Tony and Ziva not only survived, but had time to flirt each other up a bit while waiting to be rescued.

I know before the episode aired there was much debate on why the characters did the things that they did (Tony and Ziva taking the elevator instead of the stairs, Abby taking the time to grab Bert the Hippo, McGee downloading data onto a zip drive, etc), and I have to admit I was hung up on it for  awhile, but I finally had to let it go because this is TV, it’s entertainment, sometimes license has to be taken in order to move along the story, and as long as it at least plausible, I am going to let it slide.  I believe Gary Glasberg summed it rather nicely in his interview in Cannes a few weeks ago at MIPCOM 2012 when he said that he realizes the plot suffers sometimes but they turn out a new episode every eight days and a lot has to pressed into that timeframe and sometimes the case story has to take a back seat to the character story.  So I guess as long as it continues to work for me, I am okay with that… to a point.

Which brings me to my biggest gripe about this episode and the reason it fell flat for me... 

No one of any note died.

Now before you start calling me macabre, let me explain.

Of course, I didn’t want any of our team to die, but the episode would have had more emotional impact for me if someone I had even a tenuous connection with had died. 

All we got when the question was asked of Vance by SecNav about the casualties was “enough”.

Well, I wanted a number.  I wanted to know the human impact, the death toll of the bombing.  It would matter more to me to “know” someone who was killed or seriously injured.  It could have been people we have met in the past, but not a part of the core group; someone like Fred in accounting or even Dorney. (gasp!)

I know that sounds harsh, but you know what – we aren’t even to episode four of the season and already the impact of the premiere has faded and it really wasn’t properly addressed in episode number two Recovery either. 

As a viewer, I feel short changed on the impact.  I feel like I should still feel something about the “enough” who died or were injured.  Now? Not so much.

Normally, I don’t like time jumps; but in this case, it felt right to jump ahead four months.  We needed to get the season started and the ball rolling. 

Here’s hoping it rolls in the right direction.

 

Comments

[whiteink]

I just watching this last night (finally) ... and I only watched it because I wanted to do a fic for the review based on the episode.

I agree that it fell flat after the hype. Which is maybe why I wasn't excited to see it, (or see any of the season so far) but I think it had potential. It just needed more ... something.

Yeah. Something.

[dragonheart]

yeah, it was lacking....something.

I am still very excited for the season, but I won't be sucked into the hype again.

nope, not me... uh huh, not again.

If you see me start to falter, reel me back in...LOL

[merzibelle]

I guess this feeling of yours explains a lot of the reviews I get on my series of stories which took things AU after the S9 Finale. I couldn't even suspect disbelief on this one... so it was really bad for me.

[dragonheart]

your story was much better written and thought out - no doubt about it...

maybe they could hire you? how are your script writing skills?

[merzibelle]

Thanks... I'll go back to blushing now. The newest addition is posted by the way.

I'm a fiction writer... not a scriptwriter!