NCIS #4: *Slap* Nobody Likes A Smartass

I liked Tony Sr. He was a hoot. :)

Yes, he was :lol: I can't believe Tony (Jr.) covered up for him like that, either. Oh well, made for a great end scene with Gibbs.

Ceindreadh - There are a lot of episodes where it was also 'All about Gibbs' or 'All about Tony'. Why can't Ziva have some as well? I don't see it as being "ZCIS" at all. A lot of episodes have been without much Ziva.

I wish McGee would be focused more!
 
I'd personally love a little more Abby and Palmer. ;)

I can't wait to see Senior back. I like him a lot. But I'd love it if Papa Gibbs comes back around again. I love him. :D
 
Source: TvGuide

NCIS Exclusive:

Pauley Perrette's lab rat Abby has been let loose in the NCIS squad room. In a scene she's shooting for a big two-part episode airing November 16 and 23, she's trying to play pin the tail on the bomber. Pointing to a video of a suspect playing on a computer screen, she blurts out to Sean Murray's McGee, "He just confessed he knew how to make the murder weapon! I mean, how many people know how to make a homemade Claymore mine?"

"In this room?" asks McGee. A couple of visiting Israeli agents raise their hands. So does Cote de Pablo, as NCIS team member Ziva David. Then, sheepishly, so does Abby herself. "OK, fine," she mutters, reluctantly withdrawing her point.

Perrette and de Pablo may be easy on the eyes, but they can be hard-asses, too. In a medium where many actresses are still relegated to subordinate roles, you'll find no such complaints about NCIS. Ziva is the team's deadliest member, and Abby is smarter than all of her counterparts. They're not just action-show glamazons, either, but arguably the two most eccentric characters on an already deeply quirky series. The men on the show are cleverly perfected variations on the strong and silent type, the tech whiz or the wisecracking boy-next-door. Meanwhile, you'd have to venture a lot farther than next door to find a crack Israeli assassin who looks stunning in Gucci, or a genius-level forensic scientist with a spider-web tattoo and pigtails.

Together, they're a veritable Claymore mine of female stock-character demolition. "There aren't a lot of roles like this around for women, and we have two of them," crows Mark Harmon, who stars as squad leader Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Abby is not just the brainiac of the show, but also its sweetest, most open-hearted character. Still, Harmon says, "Abby's plenty tough. And Cote's a dancer and a kickboxer, for real. She moves well, so she can put an instep on your chin and look beautiful doing it."

This month, the women of NCIS are stepping it up. Ziva plays a prominent part in the next three episodes. On November 9, she goes undercover with Robert Wagner, who returns to charm her as Tony DiNozzo's slightly shady dad. Then, her own extremely estranged Mossad-chief father (Michael Nouri) resurfaces for the two-parter. These Ziva showcases follow on the heels of an Abby-centric episode, "Cracked," which Perrette describes as the hardest script she's had in the show's eight-season history, just for the sheer number of monologues.

And expository monologues are Abby's stock-in-trade. As Perrette says, "It's usually 'Whadda ya got, Abbs?' and then I talk for a page. And then 'Where?' and I talk for a page. 'How?' and I talk for a page. And then 'Thanks, Abbs!'"

Even though Abby's role in a typical episode consists of just a couple of jargon-heavy scenes down in the lab, she may be the most beloved character on TV's No. 1 scripted series. That theory was borne out when the Q favorability ratings released earlier this year revealed a three-way tie for the most liked celebrity in America, between Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman and Perrette — the only woman to even make the Top 10.

How did she become America's sweetheart with such relatively limited exposure? "We are often told, 'Leave the audience wanting more,' and we definitely do that with Abby," says exec producer Shane Brennan. "If you ask the audience to start remembering classic scenes, a lot of them are Abby moments — and because she's not on the screen as often, we go out of our way as writers to create those wonderful moments."

They're not always in the script. If there's not a lot of quirky character stuff on the page, "Mark and I can create something — just a look between the characters, or some funny physical thing," says Perrette. "My job is to take all these long lines and not only memorize and spit them out, but do it 100 times faster, because she's a caffeine addict. And make it funny. Michael Weatherly [Tony] and I pinky-shook, when the show was starting, that we'd make every episode as funny as possible. That's what's so fun, figuring out how to get the comedy into the drama."

A dedicated social activist who finally overcame her Twitter aversion to promote her favorite charities, Perrette is involved with about 30 causes off screen, from homeless shelters to gay rights to animal rescue. The last may be the most apt, because Perrette's role model and acting coach is...her dog, Cece.

"I actually play my rat terrier-Chihuahua mix on the show," she reveals. "I have played her since Day 1. I don't stand like Abby. I'm very slouchy. Everything Abby does is based on my dog — the way she cocks her head, the way she interacts when she's confused or excited. And her ears are Abby's ponytails."

But the character's puppyish displays of affection? That's Perrette, not the pooch: "Abby hugging everybody — it's because my family's from Alabama, where we hug everybody," she says. Abby is "the big heart of the show. She's sensitive and loves people and cries and misses them and gets her feelings hurt. There's a big Abby heart on her sleeve — probably both sleeves, plus her chest, her jacket, her backpack...."
 
Thanks for that, Destiny! It was a good read.

8.07 today! So excited. 1 week without a new NCIS was enough for me. CSI and NCIS are my must-sees for the week.

CdP interview w/ spoiler for the 2 parter (for anyone who is interested):
http://tinyurl.com/2ahnaz5

Had to tinyurl it because the spoiler was in the link :shifty:
 
You're welcome.

Source: TvGuide

In Focus: NCIS' Michael Weatherly Is Happy Being the Second Banana

Michael Weatherly shares plenty of similarities with Tony DiNozzo, the character he has played for eight seasons on NCIS.

Weatherly and DiNozzo are both energetic cut-ups who always seem in search of a punch line. And they both talk a lot. Like, seriously, a lot.

"Energy is the biggest part of my job," Weatherly, 42, tells TVGuide.com. "That sounds weird, but if I'm in a scene, I try to punch it up. And sometimes I really overdo it and they have to cut around me."

And of course, Weatherly and DiNozzo are different in many ways.

"Everyone assumes that I must've played football or was a college athlete," Weatherly says. "I wasn't a jock in school, and by the 10th grade, when I was in boarding school I was carrying water buckets for the girls' hockey team. I was the kid with long hair and glasses and acne trying to learn how to play guitar and piano in the music center. I was not an athlete past the age of 13 or 14 when they start throwing the ball really fast."

Weatherly wasn't much of a student, either.

Born in New York and raised in tony Fairfield, Conn., Weatherly dropped out of college to pursue an acting career in New York. He was still the kid with long hair and glasses when he made his TV acting debut on The Cosby Show as one of Theo's college classmates.


"I believe they cut my lines. I wasn't very good at saying them," Weatherly says. "It threw me into the fire. I had no idea what I was doing. I had done a couple of plays, but I was a clueless boob. Cosby allowed me to have something on my resume that was real and then the producers of Guiding Light let me play a preppy killer just the following month. Suddenly I had two gigs on my résumé that made me look like a real actor, although I was far from it."

Those roles eventually led to Weatherly being cast as Cooper Alden on the ABC soap opera Loving in 1992. He played the role for four years, even appearing on the short-lived spin-off, The City. It was on the set of those shows that he met his first wife, Amelia Heinle. The two divorced in 1997 after two years of marriage and the birth of their son, August.

Although Weatherly credits Loving with helping to launch his career, he maintains that he still wasn't much of an actor. "During the run of our show, we'd work during the day and I'd go to the bars at night," he says. "Other cast members would do plays at night: Paul Anthony Stewart was doing Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway. He was a real actor, and I was still doing my impersonation of what I thought an actor should be getting up to."

After the soap ended, Weatherly moved to Los Angeles, where he did a number of guest spots on TV series. He eventually won a series regular role on Fox's Significant Others with Jennifer Garner, but the show only lasted six episodes. After director Whit Stillman cast Weatherly in The Last Days of Disco opposite Chloë Sevigny, he spent several years pursuing a film career, with notable appearances in Cabin by the Lake and Trigger Happy.

"The big turn in the late '90s was that I realized I was going to be doing this for a long time," Weatherly says. "I was fairly sure I was going to be an actor for the rest of my life, which I think calmed me down."

In 2001, James Cameron cast Weatherly opposite Jessica Alba in Dark Angel. Playing cyberjournalist Logan Cale, Weatherly worked through some of his other insecurities.

"I thought people thought I was stupid. I always thought I had to try and impress people and be really smart because I was always insecure about not finishing school," Weatherly says. "My father and mother are both very smart people and I always felt I was a little short of the mark. So I would compensate with a character like Logan Cale. He's wearing glasses, he's in a wheelchair, he's a computer genius. He's very far away from who I am, but I really wanted to play roles where I'd be taken seriously."

But Weatherly says accepting the role as DiNozzo on NCIS in 2003 allowed him to stop worrying. "He's irritating to a lot of people, but he's a lot of fun and he's very genuine and it's a different kind of looseness you find as an actor when you get to play a part like that," Weatherly says.

In recent seasons of NCIS, many fans have become obsessed with the romantic tension between Weatherly's character and co-worker Ziva (Cote de Pablo). Weatherly, who married a co-star and was engaged to Alba off-screen while working on Dark Angel, relates to the struggles of office romance. "I remember very strongly the inevitable feeling I had about Jessica when we were doing Dark Angel because it was like I was the Millennium Falcon being sucked into the tractor beam," Weatherly says. "I didn't feel I had any control over that part of my life. I think that the same thing does happen for Tony. ... He does feel Ziva really understands him on this fundamental level that even he doesn't quite understand."

After playing the character for eight years, however, Weatherly sees his greatest similarity with the wisecracking NCIS agent: They're both the No. 2 guy. Even on DiNozzo-centric episodes, Weatherly sometimes takes a back seat. For example, on Tuesday's episode (8/7c on CBS), which features the return of DiNozzo Sr. (guest star Robert Wagner),


Tony is shocked to learn that his father has been called in to go undercover with Ziva.

"My son said to me once, 'When are you going to be 'the guy'? You're always the guy next to the girl or the guy next to the guy,'" Weatherly says. "The weird thing about my career at this point, by and large, is I've perfected the No. 2 slot. I've had a No. 2 next to my name on call sheets for so long I'm pretty loosey-goosey about the whole thing."

So does Weatherly, who married again in 2009, hope to move up that one extra spot one day? "It would be deeply disingenuous of me to say that I'm not fascinated by that kind of role," he says. "For the time being, I'm really good where we are. My life has changed so much in the last few years, personally. It has become about different things. When I go home, I've got another job, which is to be a husband and to try and connect with my 14-year-old son, who I don't see as much as I'd like to.

"I feel very centered and grounded and happy, as corny as all that is," he says. "So when I look forward now, I don't have the anxiety. There's a lot of other stuff going on in the planet than what I want to do in terms of films and television."
 
Source: TvGuide

Loved seeing Tony's dad again on NCIS! Anything else coming up for DiNozzo?

ADAM: You bet. After the winter break, you will see Tony like you have never seen him before: humorless. "We wanted Tony to have no sense of humor for a whole episode," Michael Weatherly tells us. "At the end, you realize an awful thing has happened to Tony and he's just responding this way." He says Tiva fans won't want to miss it. "Ziva confronts Tony about what's going on and it's her insight that allows him to unlock this thing that's got a grip on him," Weatherly says. "It's the truest, most romantic and painful scene, and I think it may be my favorite series moment for DiNozzo."
 
Source: EW

'NCIS' scoop: Vance paper-shredding mystery solved next week!
If your head is still reeling, and your heart still pounding, from last night’s episode of NCIS, you’re not alone. The first episode in the two-parter exploring the history between NCIS Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) and Mossad Director Eli David (Michael Nouri) was info- and action-packed. Fan favorite writer Jesse Stern has spent all season working on these two hours. Last night, we watched as Eli ventured off Israeli soil for the first time in 12 years to attend, in-person, Vance’s review of international case files with contributions from all living NCIS directors (RIP, Jenny). He wanted to be there to defend himself when the truth was finally revealed about Vance’s first NCIS mission in Amsterdam 20 years ago. Having an emotional reunion with Ziva and luring out the remaining three members of a Palestinian terror network that wants to assassinate him was just a bonus for him. For viewers, however, those scenes of the joint NCIS-Mossad protection detail running through an ambush scenario in the hotel parking garage, Ziva confronting her father about why he wasn’t begging her forgiveness for leaving her for dead in the desert, and the actual ambush itself, were the highlight of the episode.

Eli never made it to the hearing, and the episode ended with Gibbs unable to reach Eli and Vance after a blast went off at the safe house they retreated to (RIP, Hadar). NCIS exec producer Shane Brennan promises the Nov. 23 conclusion will not disappoint. “Vance isn’t gonna wake up at the end of next week’s episode and say it was all a dream,” he jokes. “It’s a cleverly-woven piece of fabric. There are no loose threads to pull at the end of this episode.” That means we’ll finally find out what happened in Amsterdam to shape Vance and set him on-course to become the director of NCIS. (The episode has extensive flashbacks to that pivotal time and, through the magic of makeup and computers, actor Rocky Carroll was able to play Vance at age 27. We’ll have exclusive behind-the-scenes shots on Monday with commentary from Carroll and Brennan.) Brennan tells EW that we’ll also resolve another of the series’ great mysteries: “The infamous paper that was shredded — answered next week,” he says, referring back to the season 5 finale when Vance became director. “The famous last scene that shocked the hell out of everyone, when he walked into his office and shredded one sheet of paper, called everyone in, and shuffled them around the world.” The text Eli sent Vance earlier this season, “I found him,” will also be part of the revelation.

Two more teases: There will be at least one more death. (I’m betting on mini-Ziva, especially after we found out that she was sleeping with Malachi. And why wouldn’t she be? He’s smokin’.) And the tension you felt watching last night’s episode as they escorted Eli to and into the hotel is just the starting point. “I think of episodes and stories in moments because people remember the moments,” Brennan says. “They talk about them the next day. They don’t say, ‘Ah, the show was about such and such.’ They say, ‘Ah, there was this great moment.’ If you get five or six moments in an episode, great. In next week’s episode, there are probably a dozen moments that are memorable. The tension is cranked up from the beginning and it doesn’t let you go… And yet, we still manage that wonderful NCIS humor.” (I loved Tony suggesting that the room full of ex-NCIS directors might want to applaud him last night.)

EP Highlights, at the bottom

Anyone looking for a recap of last weeks (8x8 "Enemies Foreign") TvGuide Has it click here
 
So who caught Enemies Foreign? Was the best episode of the season so fa without a doubt! Heck, I went on other forums and even the Ziva haters admitted that it wasn't what they were expecting and they adored it, too. Liat . . . I thought she was okay. Her accent kind of made it hard for me to understand her sometimes. However, I did like the bathroom scene with her and Ziva, and I like how they played the assassination game in the garage and Liat taught Ziva that she isn't as invincible as she thinks she is. I wonder who the traitor is? I was thinking maybe Liat, but since the episode is titled 'Enemies Domestic' I'm not quite sure. Maybe Agent Riley? So excited for Tuesday!
 
Heck, I went on other forums and even the Ziva haters admitted that it wasn't what they were expecting and they adored it, too.
You obviously missed a few because the forums/lists that I frequent thought it extremely boring. Me personally, I got about 10 minutes in and switched off, it was that uninteresting - and I wasn't the only one.
And with the promo clip that was released doesn't make me any more interested in watching the second part.

Ziva running around yelling and getting in a fight, yawn.

I hate to say it, but I think I'm pretty much done with NCIS. Maybe if they stop writing Tony as comic relief and realize that not everybody thinks that the sun shines out of Ziva's arse, then I'll give it another shot.
 
Oh wait, I forgot to look in the "haters" thread for Ziva. Of course those people aren't going to admit that they liked the episode because it has...GASP...Ziva in it. Those people, looks like including you, are going to hate on Ziva and every ep that she's in no matter what. This episode was fast-paced with a lot of action, but of course Ziva haters are going to go "It was so boring, right when I saw Ziva fter 5 minutes I turned it off." This episode wasn't even Ziva-centric for God's sake. So your argument is pretty much invalid. And for the promo, it has ONE scene of Ziva talking to her father. The exclusive preview is what you're talking about. Of course they are going to include the Ziva fight in the exclusive preview, they'd be STUPID not to do that. The sun isn't shining out of Ziva's arse, I'd say it's shining out of everybody's pretty equally. And what was wrong with Tony, besides the ending scene? The rest of him was fine. He was competent and found the car, etc. Face it, you Ziva haters are always going to hate on Ziva and never give her even a little bit of acknowledgment, even when she was a great actress in this episode and did a great job with it.
 
Face it, you Ziva haters are always going to hate on Ziva and never give her even a little bit of acknowledgment, even when she was a great actress in this episode and did a great job with it.

Why should I bother 'acknowledging' her when her apologists are doing such a bang up job of it already. I'm not going to comment on an actors abililty, because I am a *Ziva* hater, you know, the character, not the actor.

Guess what, everybody is entitled to their opinion, and *my* opinion is that Ziva is a waste of space but TPTB seem to love her. The only problem is that in order to portray her as the 'bestest ever', other characters have to be dumbed down to make her look good - Tony being the most notable victim in this case, but Gibbs too has been downgraded to make Ziva 'shine'. (hello, the guy who didn't speak to his father for years just because the guy brought a 'date' to a funeral, and yet he forgives Ziva for lying through her teeth to him for years?)

I'll repeat it, just in case you didn't get it. IMO, Ziva is the worst character on the show and my least favourite one. I am just as entitled to state my opinions as you are, and just because *you* feel that an episode is good, and the 'best episode so far' doesn't make it any more valid an opinion than mine.
 
Okay and moving on... Source: EW

'NCIS' exclusive: Behind-the-scenes of Vance's origin episode

This week, NCIS (CBS, Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET) will flash back 20 years to finally reveal what happened in Amsterdam to shape Vance (Rocky Carroll); what Mossad Director Eli David (guest star Michael Nouri) risked leaving Israeli soil to defend himself against when the file was to be reviewed, knowing that a Palestinian terrorist network would try to assassinate him in Washington (an explosive went off in the safe house he and Vance retreated to at the end of last week’s episode); and what was on that single sheet of paper that Vance shredded when he first became the director of NCIS (a question fans have been asking themselves for more than two seasons now). We chatted with Carroll and NCIS exec producer Shane Brennan, who, with the help of some exclusive photos, gave EW an inside look…

“His first assignment was in Europe. That’s where our flashbacks begin,” Carroll says. “You’ll see this young guy who is completely different from the Director of NCIS Vance who’ll emerge 20 years later. You see him having never been out of the country before. Suddenly he’s in Amsterdam, which is like Europe to the tenth power. He’s in the middle of this big, bustling European city, he’s on his first assignment, all these other characters begin to creep into his life, and he wonders if maybe he’s made the wrong decision by signing on to this. I think it’s going to be interesting for the audience, especially because in some sense, the jury is still out on how people feel about this character. I always like to say my character is kinda like the stepdad. It’s like your mother remarries, and she brings in this guy and says, ‘Kids, I want you to meet your new father.’ That was his introduction to NCIS. Some people were welcoming of it, some people said, ‘We’ll give him a shot and see,’ and there were some audience members who were kinda like stepkids goin’, ‘I ain’t callin’ him dad. You can call him whatever you want to.’ The best thing you can hope for from an audience is an honest, visceral response. There is no right or wrong answer, you’re gonna respond the way you respond [to a character]. But what I do hope, for the people who have a real love for the show, is that it answers some questions. A lot of people feel that this Vance character came out of left field. It’s nice to give them a little bit of continuity. He wasn’t some sort of nefarious character who rose out of the ground somewhere and has assumed the role of director.”

Here, Vance meets with (former) NCIS Special Agent Riley McCallister (guest star Michael O’Neill). “Aside from Vance and Eli David, there are other NCIS people that we’ll find out more about [in flashbacks], former handlers, former agents, former operatives,” Carroll says. “McCallister is probably the first relationship between Leon Vance and NCIS. That’s the jumping off point of the episode.” Adds Brennan, “Everyone involved in last week’s episode has a role in this week’s episode, some a lesser role, some a bigger role. It’s a cleverly woven fabric. There are no loose threads to pull at this end of this episode. I think it will go straight to the top of the audience’s top 3 episodes.”

Though some computer effects were used in the episode, most of the age-defying magic was done through makeup courtesy of makeup artists Margie Kaklamanos, left, and Tina Hoffman. “I learned something very interesting in the makeup world,” Carroll says. “With a little bit of tape and a little bit of string hidden under the wig, you can pull back ever so slightly on a person’s skin, erase the lines around the eyes, and give them what we call a little instant facelift.” It wasn’t painful, he reports. It just took some getting used to. “It’s like putting on glasses for the first time, if you’re a person who doesn’t wear glasses. They’re the most intrusive thing. There was about an hour of that. You’re just so aware of it.”

“For somebody who’s used to spending a total of about seven minutes in the hair and makeup chair, anything beyond seven minutes to me seems like an eternity,” says Carroll, who had to arrive at the set an hour and a half earlier than usual. “Fortunately, I’m not playing an android from another planet. To go back 20 years, it didn’t take an actual surgical procedure.” What was his biggest fear? “That we were biting off more than we could chew and the audience wouldn’t buy it,” he says. “But when you see it with the wardrobe, the music, and all the other elements combined, I think you’re gonna be pretty surprised what we were able to do.”

As crucial as this hairpiece was to turning Vance’s clock back to 27 (as supervised by hairstylists Daphne Lawson and Frank Fontaine), Carroll’s challenge as an actor was not just to rely on it and the makeup to do all the work. “I tried to go back in time, too, and think about how different I may have been physically 20 years ago,” he says. “The first thing I respond to is what the character sounds like, I guess because I’ve always been sort of a frustrated musician. I wanted to change the tone of Vance’s voice. I tried to change the vocal quality to give him a younger sound of a guy who was less hardened by the world. Present day Vance comes off as a very authoritarian figure, but back then, he’s this wide-eyed, optimistic guy fresh out of naval college.”

“They were very generous because I still didn’t have that much hair 20 years ago as I had for this episode,” Carroll jokes. “They were more than kind. I appreciate that.” Still, after nine days filming the episode, he was ready to give the hairpiece a sending off party. “This was right around Halloween that we shot this episode. My wife and my daughter said to me, ‘What are you gonna wear for Halloween, daddy?’ I was like, ‘Are you kiddin’ me? I’m gonna take Halloween off, if you don’t mind.’ I had a great time doing it. I don’t think I was that tired when I was 27, but trying to pretend I was 27 was pretty tiring.”

“Hopefully those aren’t somebody else’s biceps that they digitally put on my arms there,” Carroll cracks. Did we know Vance had those kind of guns? Too bad we don’t actually get to see them in the episode.

Now, he’s ready for action. “Vance has been sent by NCIS to track down a bad guy, and this is one of his early incarnations,” Carroll says. “The uniform is going to be very telling as the episode goes on,” he teases.

We’ll see at least four familiar characters in various flashbacks — Vance, Eli David, McCallister, and Gibbs. “Right there, in that photo, is the first time they meet,” Brennan says. “It’s an encounter that we’ve spoken of before. The first time we saw them meet on the show, back in season 5, it was a memorable encounter with Gibbs in a hallway. This photo references that meeting. We posed a question in that corridor, and this scene answers it.” (In case you forgot, it has something to do with a danish.)


See Pics & Video
 
They've had all sorts of marathons on USA: Abby marathons, undercover marathons, season 7 marathons. I wonder if they've ever considered an Agent Furnell marathon?
 
Source: TvGuide

Got anything interesting on NCIS?

ADAM: Ask yourself this: Which NCIS-er do you think needs to see a shrink? (Correct answer: All of them!) But in the meantime, one team member could log some couch time in the near future, as the show is looking to add a clinical psychiatrist who specializes in combat trauma and stress-related anxiety issues to the cast. She reads people like books and isn't shy about digging up sensitive memories.
 
Adore, adore, adore. I love the entire cast, they have such great chemistry. Love! It's such a great show. Looking forward to seeing tonight's episode.
 
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