Reviews

But talk about "choppy"! As others have pointed out, 42 minutes of plot versus undoubtedly MORE than 42 commercials just doesn't work. I'm not sure even the best writers could do it, and certainly THIS group of writers cannot. Maybe NBC needs to go back to the 2-hour format they used for shows like Columbo. And definitely Dick Wolf would do better if he concentrated on quality, instead of quantity. Three full nights of his choppy, 1-hour shows (Chicago-X, FBI-X, Law&Order-X) is too much, and just leads to mediocrity.

This episode was interesting to me because I did not know about the Theranos scandal. It was also better than the first episode because, as expected, the actors are settling into their characters. Getting into the "battered woman" issue, albeit superficially, was good because -- while the issue is important -- it is equally important to address the fact that unfortunately unscrupulous people will take advantage of such things -- just as Jussie Smollett did, claiming to be a victim of a hate crime. But don't hold your breath waiting for THAT story to be addressed by Dick Wolf, or anyone else in Hollywood!

Funny, a lot of people recognize that the actors and their characters need time to settle in, but they all seem to agree right off the bat that Jeffrey Donovan is Satan personified. I loved Donovan in Burn Notice, and I like him here. His character is obviously being established here to conflict with his partner's views, to provide food for debate. That's what the original show was all about. They seem to be doing the same thing with the 2 DAs. In fact, I'm surprised -- no, stunned -- to see a Dick Wolf show today providing any balance at all. His FBI shows do not. They are PC woke, all the way. I agree with other reviewers in their criticisms about the writers, but mediocre writing is a problem with many, many shows. There are tons of good actors & actresses about, but a good writer is rare and worth his weight in gold.

A saidistic killer acting sadistically towards the main star for the majority of the episode. Fun! The other half of the show is a sadistic criminal acting sadistically towards the public defender character. The latter sadism wasn't as bad because who doesn't think a guy who defends scumbags for a living deserves a little nasty treatment? Regardless, unpleasant from start to finish! And so far away from the reality of a cop show (or actual reality period) as to beggar belief. Hollywood writers have become total loons.

Made it this far, love Scott Foley, 1 star just for him, but too much ghastly hip-hop music interspersed with gay kissing. I hate hollywood, constantly forcing their own agenda on us. Believe the Gallup Polls or not, 95% of the population is straight. And there's also a large percentage of people who think the whole misogynistic hip-hop ghetto rap culture is nothing to be emulated.

This episode begins with Gibbs receiving a mysterious wedding invitation, but he calls the team away to investigate the murder of Naval Lt. Commander Casey, working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Somehow, arms deals and book publishing - something McGee is familiar with - are involved. The initially anonymous author, former Marine 1st Lieutenant Keeler, submitted a manuscript about "Operation Birdsong" which was confiscated by the DIA as a threat to national security. The Birdsong op involved stolen flint rifles in Cypress which turned up in Afghanistan. A second DIA employee (an FBI agent) turns up dead during NCIS's investigation.

This death brings in Joe Spano as FBI agent Fornell. I'm not a huge fan of his character, but I suppose he performs a necessary function. I gather Spano is Italian since he always emphasizes the correct pronunciation of DiNozzo's name: "Dee NOTE So" (2 Z's in Italian have a "TS" sound). Makes me think that in Fornell's back story when his family first came through Ellis Island, the authorities dropped the final vowel, probably an "i". But I digress, and will again: They clearly show McGee using Google for his search. So either he must like his every search tracked and logged, or Google paid for that product placement. Someone as tech-savy as McGee would never use something like Google, there are much safer search engines. So I hope the producers got a lot of money for that shot.

This TACA 110 episode has to be the most amazing feat of flying in this entire series -- starting with the fact that the 29-year-old pilot, Carlos Dardano, had only one eye - lost when he was shot in the face while flying a ferry service around the country during the Salvadoran Civil War. It's also one of the few episodes where no real crew error was involved. During a Level 4 thunderstorm, the brand-new Boeing 737 was preparing for a landing when it lost its engines. The crew managed to restart both engines, but they were not providing any thrust and promptly overheated. To avoid a catastrophic fire, the crew had to shut off both the normally very reliable CFM-56 engines.

They couldn't reach any airport, and their second option for landing, the highway, was rejected for fear of additional loss of life. Therefore, they were going to attempt to ditch the plane in Michoud Canal, one of the many canals in and around New Orleans. However, at the last minute, the crew spotted a narrow, soggy levee adjacent to the water. Despite his loss of 3-dimensional vision, Captain Dardano managed to deadstick the landing on the levee, using a side-slip to get there (side-slips are intended for gliders & light planes, not 47-ton jets). He also managed to stop the plane in time, despite having no reverse thrusters to slow the plane. For the first time in history, a 737 without any engines landed safely outside of an airport. All the passengers were fine.

Jet engines are made to handle thunderstorms and hail, so it took a lot of time to recreate the reason why the brand-new engines flamed out. The problem was that the engines were only at 35% power because they were in idle/descent mode, slowing for the landing. While larger hail was still kept out by the engine's design, at the slower speed, smaller hail was able to get in, past the fan and compressor blades, to the engine core. That quickly melted hail, added to all the rain coming in, overwhelmed the engines, causing them to fail.

To avoid similar problems in the future, the manufacturer made several modifications to its CFM-56 engines: Adding a sensor to force the combustor to continuously ignite under heavy rain or hail conditions; modifying the engine nose cone and the spacing of the fan blades to better deflect hail away from the engine core; and adding more bleed doors to drain more water from the engine. Truly an amazing story!

This was a good episode, too bad Tony tricked McGee into not going to Bagdad, but that was necessary for plot purposes, so I try not to get annoyed. Great chance for Jardine to visit where her brother was hurt, and funny for someone who is a germaphobe to go there. Speaking as a fellow germaphobe, that's got to be one of the worst places you would ever have to go.

Nice to see Rick Hoffman, he always makes such a good sleazy guy (it was kind of "Suits" to at least give him redeeming qualities since he was a regular character). And does anyone else get bothered by some of the nit-picky "goofs" people feel compelled to point out here? I mean, for example, lack of a charger can be so easily fixed!

I remember hating this guy [Brenda's lawyer, Gavin Q. Baker III] when I first watched the show back in 2011. Now, 10 years later, I can appreciate and enjoy the performance of the actor Mark Pellegrino. In all the episodes he was in, Pellegrino really did a great job, with many humorous touches to his character. JK Simmons did his usual excellent job of presenting a complex character, i.e., a real person, who is neither all bad or all good. Also, this episode took a big step in rehabilitating the character of Captain Raydor (saving Brenda from herself), when she was pretty much hated by all the fans of 'The Closer' at the beginning. If you'd asked them initially if they would watch a spin-off of the show with Mary McDonnell as the star, I imagine it would have been an almost unanimous "No." I was certainly one of them, and (thanks in large part to the excellent supporting cast), there I was, watching the spin-off as well -- in spite of the ever-present, ever-irritating Rusty. The main plot of 'Star Turn' was also engaging, keeping us guessing until the end whom the murderer really was. Basing my guess partially on the excellent casting, I got it wrong, but that was fine with me. This was a highly enjoyable episode.

Unlike most people here, I have never been a Kenan fan. But I've now watched the initial 10-episode run and have been very pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this show is. That's because it focuses on the universal challenges of managing family and work. Most of the cast is black, but that's basically irrelevant because what Kenan goes through applies to us all. And his show stays out of politics and PC-wokeness. This is one of the few new shows that seems to want to do this (for instance, the 2 new Dick Wolf FBI shows where apparently the ONLY threat to this country is white, home-grown terrorists). The cast is good, Kenan is very likeable, and I love his neurotic show producer played by Kimrie Lewis. Never been a big Don Johnson fan either but it's funny to watch him now settling into senior citizen-ness. I hope the show (set in Atlanta) is renewed although, given the ending, I guess they would have to make changes -- which I would hate to see if it meant losing Kimrie.

This is not a great episode. Some of the regular characters have reactions that are not normal. Notwithstanding the fact that Sergei is a child, it's quickly evident he is a criminal psychopath, destined for much worse behavior in future. Fritz being so sanctimonious - why? Pope acting in a rational manner, especially given the keen competing need for scarce police resources. He apologizes, more than once - why? It would have been a good story, but for that. Instead, it ends up being a very annoying episode.

This is a great, cleverly written episode with a very enjoyable resolution. It looks like the murderer has gotten away with a well-planned murder, but Brenda makes some key findings that eventually unveils/derails his plan. I don't usually like multi-part episodes, but this was definitely worth 2 parts and the first part makes the second part even more rewarding. As always, The Closer is so good not just because of Kyra Sedgewick's work, but the great ensemble cast surrounding her, especially J. K. Simmons, G. W. Bailey, & Tony Dennison.

What a wonderful episode! Off-beat, light-hearted, humorous, and (best of all) free of politics! After all the heaviness of the previous episodes, it made for a refreshing change of pace. Frankie Muniz, who actually was a child star, did a great job, as did Rainn Wilson -- as even more of a nut job than Muniz's character was. A lot of the lines were really funny, the writers must have had a great time, spoofing all the (deserved) Hollywood clichés. I wish writers would do more of this sort of thing, instead of infusing every show with their likewise-clichéd politics and PC-ness. And the reviewers who hated it need to lighten up a bit and just enjoy what was clearly just a one-off; I'm sure all the stories about how the world is a prejudiced, evil, horrible place will be back next week.

But for this week, nicely done! The writers even topped it off with a surprise ending that you don't see coming.

Well, we're back this week to going far afield of anything James Herriot wrote. It's interesting (but not surprising) that when James is treating the animals, most of the time, it's not just the (rather depressingly generic) farmer who's there in the barn, but his wife as well. This is unlike the situations James generally encountered where, in reality, the wife stayed up in the farmhouse which was her domain. I imagine the producers do it because they feel a need to balance the scales. They have male vets, and overwhelmingly male farmers, so they've got to shoehorn females in whenever possible. I get that. But this view unfortunately also explains the character I like to call "Superwoman," a/k/a Mrs. Hall, who really, really, REALLY is nothing like the real thing and who gets more annoyingly super every week. And who they've now got going along on calls(!) and snatching up and holding the lantern that no one else thought to do (gosh, it's nighttime, they're operating with great precision and delicacy on an animal around his carotid artery AND jugular vein, why would it occur to any of THEM to hold up the lantern?!) Unfortunately, this is not the gentle humor of James Herriot, this is the cartoonish actions of a Sponge Bob.

This episode started out with a story that actually came from James Herriot's pen! James was in charge at the fair with all the myriad, albeit humorous, aggravations the farmers presented. But then the writers had to add their own invented, rather large sub-plot of Helen's fictional fiance and Clive the bull. Nope, that never happened! As one reviewer described the show: "It's just a series with familiar named characters," because it's certainly not a recounting of Herriot's beloved stories. OK, sure, as PBS's own Masterpiece site describes it, he only sold millions of his stories in hard cover and "many millions more in paperback," so why would the writers and producers think that he might have known how to craft humorous and touching stories the public would love? No, no, they obviously know better! This series is such a wasted opportunity, so much of it beautifully done, including having James being played by an actual Scottish actor. But, hey, if you've never had the pleasure of reading any of his stories, you'll probably like this show because there is much to like -- just not nearly as much as there should have been.

This series has so much to like, and indeed I do like it. It has a wonderful cast, thousands of pages of beloved, time-tested source material, and incredible scenery. So, those who are not big fans of James Herriot should watch it and enjoy it. Even those who ARE big fans of Herriot will enjoy it. It's just disappointing that the producers felt the need to go beyond the source material and just make up stories. Expanding the housekeeper's role is fine, it's in keeping with the overall tone of Herriot's stories. However, for example, most of the plot of the 3rd episode is made up. James unilaterally deciding to put down the racehorse? Never happened. Getting threatened with legal action for doing so? Never happened. Tristan profiting by betting on that? Never happened. Why do the producers feel a need to make up stories when they have so, so many real, good ones to choose from? I was thrilled to see they were doing a remake of Herriot's stories (just for one, I always thought it unfair that Herriot, who was a nice looking man, was portrayed by one who just was not). Well, I will still watch, I will still enjoy seeing this new adaptation, I'm just a little disappointed they couldn't trust in the original source material, and I'm not at all sure WHY they felt they couldn't.