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Post by jessielee on Mar 13, 2020 20:35:31 GMT
I've read online that NCIS is going to finish filming their current episode (#398) today and tomorrow and then wrap for the season. According to THR NCIS and NCIS LA are further into their seasons with only 4-5 episodes left to film. NCIS NOLA is only around 14/15 episodes into its season. I think, there's a chance they will wrap early, while the other two may continue. NCIS may try to at least get their 400th episode filmed and then stop production completely.
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Post by llyan on Mar 14, 2020 1:27:32 GMT
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Post by llyan on Mar 14, 2020 1:30:09 GMT
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Post by kate06460 on Mar 14, 2020 16:13:16 GMT
someone on one of the fb forums thought the show was cancelled or permanently ending.
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Post by llyan on Mar 14, 2020 18:41:03 GMT
someone on one of the fb forums thought the show was cancelled or permanently ending. From what I understand, Mark still isn't under contract for season 18 yet but he was in negotiations with CBS. However, based on what Brian said and now Sean (below), it seems like everyone is confident that they'll work things out and be back for season 18. ETA: He clarified his statement a little more, but that doesn't change that it sounds like they're just waiting on CBS for the official word.
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Post by jessielee on Mar 14, 2020 22:04:43 GMT
In the last years, the renewal came always on the heels of MH inking a new contract. I think this time will be no different.
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Post by llyan on Apr 12, 2020 23:59:28 GMT
Milestone NCIS Episode Postponed by Pandemic — When Will It Now Air?By Matt Webb Mitovich / April 12 2020, 1:00 PM PDT
Courtesy of CBS
CBS’ NCIS will have to hold off a little while on marking a major milestone.
This season’s 22nd episode would have been the well-watched procedural’s 400th overall. But because of the coronavirus pandemic-related production shutdown, Season 17 will instead end with Episode 20, which airs this Tuesday, April 14, at 8/7c.
At the time Hollywood came to a halt in March, “Episode No. 399 was just two days away from the start of production,” co-showrunner Frank Cardea tells TVLine. “All of the prep work was completed, sets were built, the guest cast was set as were locations.” As such, “No. 400 was set to shoot next, and we will probably still shoot it as 400 and air as 400.”
When the milestone hour was scheduled to air this spring, “We had special things planned for it, CBS was throwing a big party for us…,” Cardea notes. “But it will happen.”
Now poised to be the second episode of Season 18 — assuming (wink-wink) that CBS’s most watched program and top-rated scripted series somehow ekes out a renewal (nudge-nudge) — Episode 400 boasts “a very interesting script” by co-showrunner Steven D. Binder “about how Gibbs and Ducky met,” Cardea shares.
As noted above, NCIS will air its last original of Season 17 this Tuesday. In an episode penned by co-EP Gina Monreal, Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) delivers a powerhouse performance as a 95-year-old man who claims to have served on the USS Arizona when it was attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and as such is determined to have his ashes laid to rest with his fellow sailors when he dies. But can Gibbs trust his gut when evaluating the old man’s story?
tvline.com/2020/04/12/ncis-episode-400-postponed-pandemic-shutdown-season-18/
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Post by jessielee on Apr 14, 2020 20:35:46 GMT
Inside NCIS' Season-Ending, Long-in-the-Making Pearl Harbor Episode: 'It Was a Story That Had to Be Told'
With what turned out to be its last original episode of Season 17, CBS’ NCIS this week is taking a trip to Pearl Harbor that has been long in the planning.
This Tuesday’s episode, titled “The Arizona,” finds Gibbs’ team trying to verify the identity of Joe Smith (guest star Christopher Lloyd), a curmudgeonly 95-year-old who claims he served on the titular battleship at the time of the Dec. 7, 1941 the attack on Pearl Harbor — and as such, wants to be interred there upon his death.
Thing is, there are no records of Joe having served on the USS Arizona, nor is there any apparent evidence that puts him aboard the ship on that Day of Infamy. Should Gibbs trust his extremely discerning gut? Could the nonagenarian be spinning a tall tale?
However things pan out for Joe Smith, the odyssey on which he sends Gibbs and the NCIS team makes for an interesting ersatz “finale.”
As co-showrunner Frank Cardea tells TVLine, “It’s a very special episode. And it’s an unusual episode — there’s no killer, there’s no bad guy. It’s just all about NCIS agents trying to do this wonderful thing for an old man.”
Co-executive producer Gina Monreal, who penned the powerful hour, says, “I think all of us at the show wanted to write a Pearl Harbor episode over the years.” In fact, she used to bat the idea around with Gary Glasberg, NCIS‘ previous showrunner until his sudden passing in September 2016, “but we never committed to doing it.
“For me personally, it was daunting because I knew all the research I would have to do, and I knew I’d want to get it exactly right,” Monreal says. She received a significant, indirect nudge from her grandfather-in-law, a World War II vet who, like Lloyd’s character, was reluctant at first to revisit his service in detail. “He didn’t talk about the war until right before his death, but seeing the importance of his story and what it meant to him — and then going through and reading as many accounts as I could find, watching as many videos I could find, seeing how these men told these stories — was so inspiring, I realized it was a story that had to be told.”
It also had to be told ASAP, given the increasingly distant history involved. “We’re really nearing the end of the time when this story can be told,” Monreal notes, given that any Pearl Harbor survivors are at this point “in their 90s and 100s.” Specifically, and quite sadly, “There were three when we first started the episode, but in February Don Stratton passed away [at age 97],” the scribe reports.
When all was said and done, with a premise plotted out and a script in hand, all that was left was filling the key guest-starring role. “I wrote it with [Christopher Lloyd] in mind, with his voice in my head,” Monreal shares, “so when he said yes and we got thim, it was such a thrill. The amount of times when you have somebody in mind and it ends up being that person…. It’s rare.”
The Back to the Future and Taxi alum, having expressed an interest in appearing on TV’s most watched drama, actually was eyeballed for an episode that filmed about a month prior, but EP Cardea knew something juicier was right down the pike.
“We said, ‘If he’s really interested, let’s hold off because there’s an episode coming up where he would be the writer’s dream come true,’ and it worked out. It was meant to be.”
tvline.com/2020/04/13/ncis-early-season-17-finale-pearl-harbor-survivor/
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Post by llyan on Apr 15, 2020 1:16:35 GMT
NCIS Duo Discuss Gibbs' Big Step — Plus, What Season 17's Actual Finale Will (Some Day!) Look Like By Matt Webb Mitovich / April 14 2020, 6:00 PM PDTCBS’ NCIS brought Season 17 to a(n early) close with an episode that ultimately sent Gibbs on a 5,000-mile journey, but not before he took an even bigger step — by opening up to a colleague.
The ersatz season finale (four episodes were left unfilmed, due to the pandemic-related shutdown) found Gibbs’ team laboring to verify the claim of a 95-year-old man (guest star Christopher Lloyd) who tried to use a purloined Purple Heart to secure his ashes, upon his eventual death, a place in interment at Pearl Harbor. Tried as they may, the team could not place this Joe Smith aboard the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941, despite his insistence that he had used his older brother’s ID to sneak into service.
In the absence of physical evidence, the special agents again and again pressed Joe Smith to regale them with detailed accounts of his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the nonagenarian kept mum. Eventually, though, Gibbs compelled the man to open up — and that, he did, with a vivid, heartbreaking monologue about how he just barely survived the Day of Infamy, while his best buddy did not. Afterward, upon carefully clocking Joe Smith’s right arm that long ago had been scarred with burns, Gibbs had the idea to have it x-rayed. And embedded deep inside, Jimmy found shrapnel that was proven to be from the bombed Arizona.
Joe Smith died shortly after sharing his story with Gibbs. But before Gibbs escorted the vet’s ashes to Pearl Harbor, he decided that he, too, needed to open up about his own wartime experiences, in Kuwait. “Hey, McGee…. You got a minute? I want tell you something about Joe. Something about me.” And so he invited McGee to grab a seat in his living room and hear what he had to share about how war changed him. How “you come home, and you’re like half a person.”
TVLine spoke with NCIS co-showrunner Frank Cardea and co-EP Gina Monreal, who wrote “The Arizona,” about Gibbs opening himself up in such a meaningful way, who that random agent “Omar” was, and what this season’s actual finale would have — and to a degree, some day will — look like.
TVLINE | Do you think that the Gibbs from three or even two years ago, even if he went through this Joe Smith experience, would have opened up to McGee in that penultimate scene? FRANK CARDEA | I don’t think he would have. I think we have seen a new Gibbs this year. GINA MONREAL | I completely agree. I completely agree. To me, this was a way of doing a father story for Gibbs. He sees his father in Joe, he looks at his bracelet several times, he says, “That’s how these guys are,” WWII vets. He’s talking about his dad in a certain way. It’s an opportunity for Gibbs to connect with someone like his father, and through this story he does open up. But the Gibbs of three years ago might not have gotten there. He’s definitely evolving. CARDEA | I’ll let you in on a little anecdote: the original cut of this episode was 13 minutes longer. Sometimes they run a little long, but this one ran really long, so we had to cut some moments that I miss. But it was really important to me, that scene with McGee. We could have easily cut from “Joe gets to go to Pearl Harbor” to Pearl Harbor, but it was so important that we kept that scene with McGee intact. A lot of people are going to be talking about the performance of Christopher Lloyd, and it is amazing, but for me the performance by Mark Harmon is the rock that keeps the whole episode together. MONREAL | Totally.
TVLINE | I was watching Mark during Christopher Lloyd’s big monologue, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gibbs like that, where his eyes were almost wet. I was like, wow, this is really affecting Gibbs, and maybe even Mark. MONREAL | And if you look at his performance throughout, what he does in the silent moments, how he reacts in between dialogue…. It’s just extraordinary.
TVLINE | Frank, nearly 400 episodes in, do you still get feedback from Mark? Like, “That was a real firecracker of a scene”? CARDEA | Oh yes. [Laughs] Yes, yes, yes. Mark is great about it. Mark is an executive producer on the show and he very rarely gives you notes, but when he does it’s on himself. You may have noticed in the middle of the episode, Mark walks through the squad room and there’s an agent walking by and he goes, “Omar, I haven’t got time!” and he keeps walking. Well, Omar Lopez is the newly installed director of the actual NCIS, for real. (Lopez was sworn in June 2019.) It’s been a tradition with the show, going back to Season 1, that when the director of the agency comes to visit, we have him walk through the squad room, hand off a coffee or whatever. As I said, we were 13 minutes over but we kept Omar in, and the only note Mark gave us on the scene was, “You used the wrong take of Omar! He gave us a better reaction.” We ended up with the original take that the director put in, but we went around and around and around with Mark on that one.
TVLINE | Thanks for pointing that out, I was curious about conspicuous Omar. MONREAL | We’re sure people will be wondering. [Laughs] CARDEA | The other great story about Omar is that he came to visit in Season 1 — when he was a probie. This is how long the show has been on. He was a JAG lawyer who joined NCIS 17 years ago, back then he visited the set with someone else, and now he’s head of the agency.
TVLINE | At the time production shut down, where were you at with the four unaired episodes? CARDEA | [This week’s] was supposed to be Episode 20 of 24. We had two days left to shoot this episode when the decision was made that we had to shut down, so we made the executive decision to shoot on a Saturday, which is never done [on our show]. Saturday, March 14 was our last day of shooting, and the post-production parts were all done remotely; it’s amazing what you can do nowadays.
Episode 21 was two days away from production. The sets are built and now locked up in our stages, the locations were pulled, the actors had been cast…. That’s probably what we will shoot first [whenever production resumes]. Episode 22 was going to be our 400th, which we had special things planned for and CBS was throwing a big party for us…. But it will happen. We have a lot of flexibility to air the first five or six episodes [of next season] in any order we want, but we will still shoot 400 as the second one and air it as the second one. (Get details on the Episode 400 storyline.)
TVLINE | Did the originally envisioned season finale end with a big reveal/development, or a life-and-death cliffhanger? CARDEA | The envisioned season finale did not have a cliffhanger ending but was planned to have a very surprising ending. More of a reveal/development, as you phrased it. We do plan to go forward with that episode in the early part of Season 18, but will probably reevaluate the ending when the time comes.
tvline.com/2020/04/14/ncis-recap-season-17-finale-episode-20/
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Post by jessielee on May 23, 2020 22:19:11 GMT
The 12 Best 'Accidental' Finales From This Truncated TV Season
Slightly shorter can sometimes turn out to be sweeter, a dozen TV series learned this spring as their pandemic-paused runs came to an early close.
When production in Hollywood, Vancouver, Atlanta et al shut down in mid-March, it meant that many dramas and comedies came up short of their planned episode counts — sometimes by several episodes, though in some cases just one shy of the finish line. As such, the typical result was a “finale” that perhaps didn’t end with the biggest possible narrative bang, but instead played as what it was: a regular ol’, late-season episode.
But in some select cases, shows lucked out, either due to meaningful plot movement, bravura performances and/or a significantly twisty final sequence. (Or, in at least one example, by pulling off an impressive “shot-at-home” episode.)
We went into this extremely unusual “finale” season with tempered expectations, but the 12 shows below impressed us quite a bit with final episodes that made you go, “Know what? That would have been plenty satisfying if it was a planned season finale.”
NCIS
“The Arizona” (Season 17, Episode 20 out of a planned 24)
You had to suspect that NCIS had something special planned for a guest star the caliber of Christopher Lloyd, but few could have anticipated just how powerful and heartbreaking his performance as a self-proclaimed Pearl Harbor survivor would be. (Ergo, his Performer of the Week kudos!) Even more affecting was how his Joe Smith drew in Gibbs, sparking one of Mark Harmon’s very best performances. Capping the solid finale was that penultimate scene between Gibbs and McGee, where the former opened up about his own wartime experience like seldom before.
tvline.com/lists/best-tv-season-finales-2020-walking-dead-batwoman/ncis-season-17-finale-review/
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