NCIS: New Orleans

Like the show and I like this NCIS the most out of all of them. Yet, I'm really missing the character played by Lucas Black. He is charismatic on screen. A joy to watch. Scott Bakula can't carry this show with CCH. CCH is stronger and much more likable scene stealer.

I liked this series so much at first. I'm a huge NCIS fan. The cast of this show has always been very good. My problem now is with the storylines. The show no longer deals with dead sailors or marines. It seems to be more about international terrorism and various personal problems of cast members. A big part of the time I have no idea what's supposed to be going on. I'm afraid this show jumped the shark a good while ago. It's beginning to remind me of a want to be "Burn Notice." I'm so disappointed.

Take a lousy plot and try and make up for it by making your main character a guy that loves to cook creole food and plays in a jazz band. Drop lots of street and neighborhood names and generally WAY too much "culture" and what do you get? NCIS New Orleans. Oh, and make sure you include street violence and a corrupt politician. The crooked politician and trumpeter are WAY overplayed. I'm from NOLA and I hoped this would at least be close to as good as the original NCIS. Instead it tries to play off the fame of the original and America's fascination with our unique culture to make poor writing sell. But then trying to use exaggerated cultures of various cities to sell lousy writing is an old game.

I grew up in New Orleans and I'm an avid NCIS fan, so I was interested to see how they would handle the Crescent City episodes. Overall, I think it did really well. 8 points out of 10.

A few things: 1. In episode 1, there were a few mistakes that those people who are locals could easily notice. A little bit more research would've been better, but the plot/characters/etc. was good.

2. Bakula's ongoing "my brother, my brother" is too much. People in NOLA don't do that, if anything they say "cher" as an affectionate term for friend, so it seemed overdone on the show.

3. A little bit hard to believe in part 2, that a woman would leave a bar to walk in a dark alley alone with someone she had just met. No local would ever do that.

4. I liked part 2 much more than part 1, because they focused more on places the locals go to and not just the "tourist top 10 spots" like in episode 1. I also loved how they talked about the city and it gets into your DNA. Great and well scripted.

5. Love the actors and think it could be a great series going forward :)

I love the NCIS shows. Entertaining characters, diverse and textured scenery. I like that the writers sometimes come up with a plot that I haven't seen or read in any variation before.

THAT BEING SAID,I must pose the question: Is it possible to write a good TV show without inserting an agenda? For instance, Persons of Interest was taken off the air after soon after a self involved individual took the focus off the "team" and their work and diverted a portion of the attention to a lesbian relationship. It sapped the strength of the program. I see the same thing happening here.

Making the characters deeper is a great idea but, really, in real life do you realize how few people per capita are homosexual? So if there are so few that interact with hetero's in real life, how does it benefit the program to force on the average viewer something that they cannot really grasp or identify with?

Thanks for your attention. This is wisdom that could make you money. Hope you hear me.

D.