Roundtable Discussion – Part One: NCISLA Season 6 Review

We’re back! You didn’t think the wikiDeeks staff would let Season 6 go by without a roundtable discussion, did you? Of course not! There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth but there were some bright spots too as we took a look back at the last season. Join the discussion in the comments section below and let us know your thoughts. Here’s what our contributors had to say…

Diane: So can we talk Season 6? What we’re all your thoughts as we look back?

Courtney: I’m like the bearer of negativity at all times, but overall all I thought it was pretty boring. It’s as if they were trying to be too safe after kind of jacking a lot of things up. They wanted to be too safe and a lot of the character arcs were boring.

Karen P.: I totally agree with Courtney. Uninspiring is the word I would use for it. It felt like there were a lot of false starts to the longer running stories, and Eric Christian Olsen was more underutilized than in any other season… his talents were completely wasted.

Colleen: I agree completely. The word for me would be lackluster. It just seemed like they kept building to a point and insinuating something and then pulling back over and over again. They didn’t develop anything concrete with any of the storylines. And as far as the underutilization of Eric, that was completely spot on. How many times did he have only four lines… and his talent was disrespected. It was a joke and I was annoyed for most of the season.

Tess: I kind of disagree. I liked it. I didn’t think it was perfect. I think there were some big flaws, but they made some corrections with problems that they had in Season 5, some of which was not their fault, but I think they tried some things and they are going to pay off this season. The Internal Affairs [storyline] is going to pay off this season. There were a lot of things left dangling but there are opportunities to do more. Hopefully the viewers will stick around long enough to get the payoff.

Randy: I was thinking of the other seasons where there was always this tension and build-up, and with this season the IA investigation was left dangling and there was nothing much more after that. But “Humbug” was pretty cool since that was the beginning of the Densi relationship. I know all of us here at Deeks Central were sad that it went back to the Sam and Callen show again. I was really looking forward to more of a backstory to Deeks when Season 6 started, and I was kind of ho-hum about the whole season. I got it on DVD, but there are only a handful of episodes that I would want to go back and watch.

Brenda: I also have to put myself in the lackluster and uninspired camp. I just got the DVDs and went through my PVR to delete Season 6 and I couldn’t remember as much of the episode content from the names as I could in past seasons. Aside from “Humbug,” “Spiral,” and “Expiration Date,” there were few that jumped out at me. That was partially due to the fact that I didn’t re-watch as many of them as I had in the past because there were so few “Go for Santa”-type scenes that demanded repeated views. I was also frustrated by the discontinuity of storylines and the resulting impact on the logical flow of the season. The storyline jumps did not enhance or contribute to drama, they just resulted in a choppy feel. Lots of loose threads to tie up in the future if they so choose.

Gayle: I was often confused because there were times where I had questions about whether this was originally the Season 5 intent that couldn’t play out in Season 5 for obvious reasons… that they couldn’t come back and infuse into 6 with some other things. So for me it felt like a misfit with some puzzle pieces that didn’t necessarily fit together, and a lot of episodes felt like one-offs versus having some consistent story arcs that we have come to appreciate from this show. One of the things that Lindy has brought up in the past is having a great villain like they have had in the past, someone you like to hate. They started off with Matthias in the beginning but got rid of him very fast and then everybody made their way into the Mission, which made us question how secure the location actually really is at this point. I will say this… that I was super excited about having a multi-story arc with Arkady at the end of the season. That really breathed some life into the show that had been missing. But going back to thinking of what might have been for Season 5, I look at “Expiration Date” and wonder if that was supposed to be in 5, and getting some closure with Ernie Reyes, Jr.’s character and how that was going to relate to Densi, and now that’s something we can never be sure of.

Tess: The Mission had more visitors than Disney World had last year. They bent over backwards trying to show that this was the most secret place in America and then it’s like, let’s bring in some DOJ investigators, let’s bring in Julie Chen and her security people, let’s bring in the FBI. That to me was problematic and it blew off the fact that this was the world’s most secret place. But the thing I think they missed out was the whole mole storyline. Because I don’t know if that’s been answered or not. They poisoned Granger and they arrest some guy we’ve never seen before but that was it! I expected more.

Courtney: I totally agree with that. I think it’s still going but I don’t think they remember it’s still going.

Randy: I still want to know how Hetty walked out of a Congressional Committee hearing with no fallout.

Diane: Anything else in terms of inconsistencies? A lot of people have been complaining on social media about that.

Tess: I think they wasted a lot of great guest stars with one and dones. When they brought in Michael Gaston, and he was going to be the CIA handler for the woman who was the traitor… he is one of the best character actors around and I knew this guy was going to be great but he had two scenes! He probably barely found out where the coffee machine was. Same thing with Gerald McCraney. He’s been on Deadwood and Justified and as soon as he had that one scene with Hetty, I was like ‘Could we do this for the rest of the hour?’ I could watch just the two of them talk to each other! He was in and gone. I don’t understand why you get these great supporting characters and do nothing with them. They got Daniel J. Travanti to play Callen’s father, and if they don’t run with that I’m going to be really disappointed because he is great.

Brenda: I totally agree with you, as well as the previous comments about the Mission and the Congressional hearings. It can become tiresome and one-note to have villains that persist and never have resolution, but the same is true for repeated one and dones. After a while it’s like the “unknown crewman” on Star Trek– you know they’re disposable so you don’t become invested in the character. On the good guy side, I was so happy they brought Ernie Reyes Jr. back again – he could have been such a powerful recurring character. I know there are those who view his death as advancing Densi and I can see that as well. However, I really like the actor and the character and was very disappointed that they eliminated the potential of future appearances.

Courtney: One of Gibbs’ rules is ‘Don’t waste good’ and that’s pretty much how I saw all of Season 6. They had so much good and they wasted it. To go back to what Gayle said, I think the whole Arkady storyline at the end would have been a much better story to end Season 5 because they had the “Reznikov” episode in Season 5, and everything was so fresh with Callen’s dad. To me that seems like it was meant to end Season 5 and it would have been a whole lot better.

Karen P.: I have a crackpot theory on the end of Season 6. It really seemed they were building up to the IA storyline and that they would have to address it before the end of the season, as a good storyline for Deeks that they had been teasing us with for two seasons, but all of a sudden they switched to the Arkady storyline. To me it felt as if they really believed they were going to get cancelled and they wanted Callen to find his father at the very end. Even the way the last ten minutes [of “Chernoff, K.”] played out, they had so much time at the end of that episode that they could have inserted a scene where he actually talked to Daniel J. Travanti had they gotten notice that the show was cancelled. I didn’t have any reason to think that they would have been cancelled, but that’s the way it felt to me.

Brenda: That is something I had not thought of but actually totally makes sense to me. It was much more obvious on Bones that they were not sure about another season so they wrapped things up tightly. However, this could easily have functioned as a- somewhat unsatisfying- series finale.

Tess: I wonder if they thought with [episode] 150 coming up in Season 7 and that fact that they like big round numbers where big things happen to Callen, why not bring him back for 150?

Diane: That’s true because the 100^th episode was all about Callen as well. What about the ending for Season 6? Were you happy or sad it wasn’t a cliffhanger, or did it matter?

Courtney: I don’t mind a lack of cliffhanger, it means we can start the season fresh. I don’t mind the lack of a cliffhanger when it’s a really solid finale, but I didn’t think this finale was solid. It ended the season in a very ‘blah’ way for me, but I’m excited for the season to start because the last time we didn’t have a cliffhanger we had a season opener like “Human Traffic” that was awesome. I felt like the finale was lacking a lot and it was not holding my attention at all.

Brenda: I’m fine with the lack of cliffhanger. I don’t put much stock in cliffhanger episodes for any series as it’s generally just an episode or two story arc that is left aside when the season proceeds. I find them often to be over-the-top – like “Descent”. It’s the only episode of NCIS:LA I’ve never watched. Heard about it, see stuff like that in real life, don’t need to see it on TV. And, despite what Deeks and Sam went through, it was quickly in the background as the season progressed. I’d rather see solid story-telling all year long.

Tess: I’m fine with them not having any cliffhanger because the cliffhanger for Season 5 was so ridiculous. Are Sam and Callen going to die on the boat? Their picture is on the cover of the DVDs… I pretty much know who is getting out alive of the episode and who’s not. I was more positive about this season finale than Courtney, although I thought she had really good points. I’m fine with them not doing anything for the sake of them doing something, and that was the feeling I got at the end of Season 5, because there was a cliffhanger on that one.

Randy: It’s like going on at the end of that huge cliffhanger at the end of Season 4 with Deeks and Sam. We know they aren’t going to die, but how damaged are they going to be after the ordeal? With Sam and Callen on the sub we know they aren’t going to die. But with Season 6, it felt forced to me. They had the Arkady arc, but for me it felt like they cut the story in half, and it felt like something should have happened and then they went to the credits.

Lindy: I wanted to talk about one thing that really bugged me about this season and it was the lack of passion. There wasn’t a villain to get angry with or long term scenarios that put any of the them in danger we had to worry about. And there was also no passion between the characters, especially between Kensi and Deeks. After four years of sexual tension between these two, it was kind of ‘oh yeah, we’re dating and we’re going out with our friends’. It just didn’t make sense to me that there wouldn’t be some sort of explosive passion between these two people after all these years of waiting for it. I think that was a big disappointment for me and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t let us see a tiny bit of that. It was just blah and I thought the whole season was blah. I’m just hoping that for Season 7 there will be more passion from the characters.

Karen P.: Before they put Deeks and Kensi together, I was arguing that they should do that. But I was afraid that this group of script writers wasn’t going to know what to do with them once they got them together. It sort of felt like they weren’t sure how to show them together, and we got a variety of slightly different Densi’s, but there was not a lot of passion as Lindy described it.

Brenda: I agree on both counts– was arguing for them to be together but was also a little concerned that the writers would not know how to write that. My perception of the rest of the season after “Humbug” was that they weren’t sure how to write it. However, after seeing the deleted scenes, it doesn’t seem like the writers are the ones with the problem, there was some good writing and acting lost in the editing process.

Randy: I agree that there was no passion, but there wasn’t any tension either. You have a new couple that is just starting out in the dating world and they have to work together, and their job is tense and dangerous. They need to focus on the tension like the IA investigation… What if there is something serious going on here? Is Deeks terrified how Kensi is going to see him? The fallout from Afghanistan… are they ever going to discuss that? Or is there something out of her past that could change their dynamics? It’s like the Moonlighting curse, where after a couple gets together they get so boring that you hope that something happens that they break up so you can have that tension again.

Lindy: But it doesn’t have to be that way. They are in dangerous situations every doggone episode and after you almost die, wouldn’t there be some sort of connection that would bring them together so they could express how afraid they had been for one another? If fanfic writers can do it I find it hard to believe professional writers can’t find a way to show that type of relationship is anything but boring.

Brenda: I have to agree with my favorite fanfic writer! They need you in the writing room! Even without dating, they have a phenomenally dangerous job and rarely seem to be that relieved at surviving life or death situations. How is that not more present for the whole team and then kicked up a notch given their relationship?

Gayle: Absolutely! One of the things I was wondering during the whole season was with Kensi and where she was in the whole state of things. Some episodes she was barely his partner anymore, so forget whether he was making her laugh or annoying her as we have come to expect, but sometimes there just wasn’t anything there between them because they always had this whole concern that they had to stay professional, which was fine when they were on the job, but we don’t get to see any part of the opposite of that as to how they are responding to that as people, and not how they are responding as agents… then that’s a hard sell for us.

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Later this week we will talk about our thoughts and what’s on our wish lists for Season 7.  Make sure you come back to join in on the discussion.