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| I don't suppose there's any way for her to move the board in her favor so that what she's up to becomes very important to future episodes, is there? |
Chances are, you've heard of my unhappiness in how NCIS LA is being run now. Well, I have my good reasons, and the main issues are the people who are in charge of the episodes.
There needs to be some serious changes in the Behind the Scenes crew, and this article will explore why.
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When the first showrunner, Shane Brennan, was running the show, the episodes treated every team member fairly. There was no special treatment, no preferences of 1 team member over the other, and the episodes were sharp. Even the boring or bad episodes were still good in some ways.
R. Scott Gemmill took over after Season 7. Seemed like a good choice given that he was a good episode writer. Unfortunately, THAT would end becoming a bad choice within a few years.
Season 8 was a great Season, and sadly, his only great Season. Season 9 was okay. Season 10 however, is when the negative changes began.
The show started pushing aside most of the team members for Kensi and Deeks's never ending issues, started giving Callen and Hetty the stiff shoulders, such as turning Callen's love life into a badly written and confusing soap opera, sending Hetty basically all over the world without saying why and basically trying to make it look like she doesn't care about her team anymore (even though that isn't true at all!), starting really long episode arcs that last for so long, they not only start to make no sense, but people start begging for them to just, freaking, end!!! Also, there's almost no continuity on anything serious, details are left out on a lot of things, things that should be important keep getting forgotten, and apparently, OPS can be run very easily by just 1 person instead of needing 2 people! (even if that 1 person hates technology!).
Not to mention, the blatent special treatment that the rookie agents are getting is beyond annoying!!! 😡😡 They don't get punished for anything, they're coddled when things go very wrong for them (and yet, every other team member gets told to suck it up.), they're getting more screentime and attention from everyone else, and they're just not really believable as agents. Hetty never gave anyone special treatment, and everyone turned out just fine. Why should 2 'DIVERSE' (🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄) agents get treated so much different from everyone else?
Plus, the team just looks really out of it now. Callen is constantly stuck reflecting on his past (which keeps getting rewritten for some unknown reason), Kensi and Deeks are all obsessed with either having a baby, or adopting, or fostering (just make up your freaking minds!!), Sam is, just really overrated now, the rookies are, as said above, now more important then everyone else (🙄🙄), Whatever Hetty is up to is apparently not important enough to be mentioned or updated, and everyone supposidly doesn't care (Before Season 9, NONE of this crap would've been accepted, NONE!! Why should any of it be considered 'normal' now?!😡), That cranky a-hole who is hogging her incredible office (and drinking all her whiskey!) is trying to play his way into everyone's trust (which I don't buy for 1 second).
The emotional connections that everyone had with each other is basically gone now. They all just look either partially annoyed with each other now, or they really only care about who they're partnered up with for the case. And that is really sad.
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This show never should've gotten this bad. And the main reason why it did: Very, bad, BTS leadership.
Time to look at the issues of the writing staff:
Gemmill has written some of the best episodes of this show that I've ever seen (including the legendary 'Till Death do us Part'!). Today, his episodes are, mixed bags. (especially with his recent 1 being the betrayal that is 'Subject 17'). And his leadership of this show? Terrible, all around.
Frank Military is the favorite among the Densi fans, mainly because of his focusing on Densi in his episodes. His episodes used to be amazing, and team centric. But now, they mainly focus on 1 of these 3 things:
a: Densi
b: Politics
c: Sam
Or d: All 3. And neither is really a good thing because he hasn't written a really good episode of this show since Season 10's 'Better Angels'. And the worst part: He's 1 of the producers, and he's in charge of 1 of the worst arcs of this show I've ever seen.
Kyle Harimoto is also on the producers side. He was a decent writer, Well. Up until Season 10's 'Searching'. I don't really trust him now, especially since his recent episode was the beyond terrible and unfairly political 'Fukushu'.
Andrew Bartels is another decent writer, he mainly focuses on Callen now in his episodes. I'd say he's still somewhat okay.
Lee A. Carlisle hasn't written many episodes, so I won't say if I trust him too much.
Samantha Chasse is new, but DID surprise me last Season with 1 episode. So, she may have some potential.
While there are still a few decent writers around, The real issue is the way the episodes are now being produced. Apparently, anything that is bad or completely ridiculous goes, and the leadership behind the scenes is okaying all of it! like, there's so many better ways for this show to go, and yet the absolute worst ways are being approved??!
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Here's what needs to happen if Season 14 is to have any chance of being an improvement. (yeah yeah, I'm a bit divided on whether or not it should actually happen, but I ain't no fool. Despite whatever it may look in terms of who might look like they want to leave, it'll more then likely be renewed in the end.):
Get a new showrunner who actually wants to HELP the show improve, tell the current decent writers to improve, or leave. Get new writers that can help this show get it's old glory back. Maybe even try to bring back a few old writers who left a few years ago?
And unfortunately, here is what will likely happen (because I have the best ideas that never get taken seriously):
No behind the scenes change will happen, no cast members will leave (despite what it may look), and the cycle of 'promising a better season and then breaking that promise in the first 2 episodes' will continue as if nothing happened. (😞)
Something has just got to give. Like, how can something like this even be tolerated for so long? Do they really think serious fans were never going to notice the changes?
Sigh. Can a miracle really happen this late in the game? I certainly hope so.
NCIS LA returns on Feb 27 (with what looks to be a really pathetic excuse for a filler episode)