Those of you who read this regular series know that I very much like the drama program NCIS. The character development is outstanding, but the inside jokes are superb.
This is a short piece, but I just had to share it. It connects NCIS with Doctor Who! Yes, two of my favorite things sort of rolled up into one.
More after the artful, orange design.
Some folks do not like Donald P. Bellisario, but I really appreciate his inside jokes and associations with other TeeVee shows. He must be a Star Trek fan, because several episodes are rife with references to some of its iterations.
In one episode, Conner Connor Trinneer, who played the chief engineer on the first Enterprise, NX-01, was a bad guy. In the very same episode Tim Russ, who played Mr. Tuvok on Voyager was also a guest. But the zinger came when one of the main cast asked the Ziva David character about the Vulcan death grip!
Another time the Caitlin character asked the Gibbs character what Ducky (the medical examiner) looked like when he was younger. Gibbs said, "Like Illya Kuryakin " That was a wonderful reference, since the great actor David McCallum played Illya Kuryakin in the old series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
On yet another, one of the suspects was at a costume party dressed as a Klingon. One of Tony's statements was, "I hate Klingons", taken from Kirk from the motion picture Star Trek: The Search for Spock.
When Bob Newhart guest starred, they even gave him a telephone monologue! That is class.
But tonight took the cake, as it were. One of the guest stars on this episode was Alex Kingston, noted from the series ER and Doctor Who. She played a character named Miranda Pennebaker, the name not being the joke. On Doctor Who she played River Song, a very mysterious character. It turns out that she was the child of Amy Pond and Rory Williams. OK, still not so clear, but her other name was Melody Pond. Now comes the inside joke.
Twice during NCIS tonight she used the phrase, "...keep my toe in the pond." What a subtle but decisive reference to her tenure on Doctor Who! I really respect the writers of NCIS for making these references.
I expect to see Kingston again in the series, since she is a redhead, and Gibbs is drawn to them. What other references will we see?
Am I making too much of this? I do not think so. As Gibbs himself says, "I do not believe in coincidences". NCIS is a very, very well written series that has outstanding character development. Adding the inside jokes just makes it more cerebral for me. I know that Abby is sort of unrealistic as a forensic scientist, but what the hell! If I had her job I would be unrealistic, too.
What a fun episode!
Warmest regards,
Doc, aka Dr. David W. Smith
