Review: 'NCIS: Los Angeles' - 09/24/2013

Some television shows are a bit like TV's answer to that girl you dated for a year back in college. They have a lot of individual qualities that are very charming and you think of them fondly when they're not around. But you also know in your heart that they're not "the one." You'd miss them when they were gone, but you'd live. And you know that you can find another half-hearted crush pretty easily, if it comes to that.

I certainly feel that way about "NCIS: Los Angeles," which begins its fifth season this week. The show has been a solid ratings success for CBS and now it's joined its sister show "NCIS" as one of the USA Networks ratings "go-to" programs. The cast is uniformly strong and there are some characters that are simply fabulous (is there a better character in a procedural than Linda Hunt's "Hetty" Lange?). But despite all of its charms, I find myself lukewarm to the show on a weekly basis.

Unlike probably every other critic in America I end up watching every episode of "NCIS: Los Angeles" and after every episode I find myself conflicted about whether I've just wasted an hour of my time. But despite my lack of passion for the show, I've continued to watch because every episode includes a few kernels of greatness buried in the rest of the workmanlike plot. And in much the same way I dated some women much longer than I should have, I find it difficult to admit that I should just walk away from the show.

On paper, "NCIS: Los Angeles" should work as well as its parent series "NCIS." Both shows feature a strong boss, a close knit ensemble and a hardy band of likable but geeky subcharacters. But as I watched the season premiere, I finally realized why I haven't been able to completely embrace "NCIS: Los Angeles." Unlike "NCIS," this isn't a show about an ensemble of characters who truly seem to understand and like each other. The ensemble in "NCIS: Los Angeles" isn't a surrogate family. It's a bunch of almost random characters who are friends because that's what it calls for in the script.

Season five picks up just where season fours cliffhanger ended. The team is searching for several missing nuclear weapons and to track them down they free arms dealer Marcel Janvier (Christopher Lambert) from a near-certain death sentence overseas. Yes, he's manipulative and he was directly responsible for the death of an NCIS agent, but he's one of those "last resort" choices that are so popular in thinly-scripted procedurals. Through a series of increasingly unbelievable twists that I won't recount here, the team is struggling to discover the location of the weapons and keep them away from the Iranian government. As last season ended, Special Agent Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) and LAPD Liaison Marty Deeks (Christian Olsen) had been captured and Deeks was being tortured Marathon Man style in an effort to discover if a woman they know is in reality an undercover federal agent. Of course she is, and she is also Sam Hanna's wife.

As you might expect, in the end the bomb is recovered, all the bad guys are dead or accounted for and Hanna has developed a new respect for Deeks following the latter's refusal to break under pressure. Everything is all very workmanlike and relatively predictable.

Predictably, Deeks and Hanna are traumatized by the torture. Especially Deeks, who tells Hanna he thinks he might have worked his last case. This also gives Deeks the opportunity to make the shipper fans of the show happy by telling his partner Special Agent Kensi Blye (Daniela Ruah) how much she means to him.

When it was all over, I found myself thinking that it was another fast-paced but ultimately soulless episode. It's difficult for me to pin the blame on any one factor in the show. It's like trying to define star quality, you know when you see it. But you also are really aware of when it isn't there. And despite the ratings and the fans of the show, "NCIS: Los Angeles" just doesn't do it for me.