TV Review – NCIS: New Orleans
3 min read
NCIS: New Orleans is a return to what was great about the first few seasons of the original NCIS with a good balance of personalities and crimes to be solved. The season kicks off with a joint investigation between the New Orleans NCIS branch with Special Agent Dwayne Cassius Pride (Scott Bakula) and Christopher LaSalle (Louis Black) joining original series cast, introducing new characters and beginning the new spin off in style. The New Orleans team is joined by Meredith Brody (Zoe McLellan) from another branch of NCIS looking for a new start after making a mistake in the field.
The show would be incomplete without old vendettas and unsolved cases plaguing characters’ lives, plot threads that represent some of the best episodes in the season. The continuous storyline finds Pride chasing ghosts with an old crime family’s next generation coming out of the wood work to make his life a living hell. His obsession with catching ‘Baitfish’ Paul Jenks (John Livingston) propels the show right up until the final moments of the last episode.
Dr Loretta Wade’s (C.C.H. Pounder), the medical examiner, has pile of case files that have plagued her career and had the chance to close a case she had never felt was ever solved. Exploring the racial tensions of the south in the not-so-distant past and the corruption of the police force over race relations.
NCIS: New Orleans has the potential to be something great. Obviously, with the success of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, New Orleans has a ready made audience eager to see more from the franchise, especially with many other crime shows like Hawaii Five-0 and Scorpion being linked back to one of the series’. The show follows a ready-made formula for success that has given its sister series’ so much success. NCIS: New Orleans has a good mix of personal lives and crime, helping you fall in love with characters and giving you something to cling onto through the drama.
But it’s because the show follows this same formula that the show doesn’t feel new. It doesn’t feel fresh or revolutionary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. There is a comfort that comes from trusting the show will be good when you have a platform to base your assumptions on. However, there are plot holes and unanswered questions that really feel like they have been skimmed over, not that the writers are waiting to reveal something. NCIS: New Orleans kicks off with Pride’s marriage falling apart, but as the season progresses it’s talked about less, and it feels like its been forgotten about. Or the fact that Pride’s knick name is King, but after the first few episodes, he’s not called that again. That being said, NCIS: New Orleans is an enjoyable continuation of the NCIS franchise with loveable characters and interesting storylines. It will be exciting to see where the next season goes and how the clean up from this season is handled.
