I had the misfortune to watch the first 2 seasons being repeated on USA. They were awesome. Tony and Kate had a great dynamic between the two of them, Ari made for a devious villain, and the rest of the crew was pretty cool.

Then I caught up to the new stuff and was thoroughly disappointed. For a character driven show, the only character that showed any sort of progression was Tim, who progressed from Nerd to Asshole. Abby and Tony are caricatures, never changing as characters (although I swear Tony was portrayed more competently in the beginning of the series) while Gibbs is a fucking deus ex machina. Ziva is good enough, but I preferred Kate. Plus, there's a little voice in my head that warns "why the hell is there a foreign agent allowed access to all these top secret Navy projects!?".

As for fanfics, my favorite two NCIS fanfic authors are SnoopMaryMar and Rigil Kent.

 

I have enjoyed the series from the start. There is a decent character progression for Tony, Ziva and Tim in my opinion. It got a kick start last season and continued up until now. They are by no means earth-shattering changes but it does show how they have matured slightly and grown more accustomed to wokring as a team.

As for why a foreign agent allowed access ot these files:

Spoiler

Ziva has defected from Musad(?sp) and become both an American citizen and new agent for NCIS.

 

I used to watch it, enjoyed series 1 through 3 1/2. Then lost interest. The quality of writing, and of acting, was going downhill fast. You could see what the end of an episode was going to be within 5 minutes of starting to watch it, and the characters had become almost stereotypes of themselves from earlier seasons. Not interesting to watch any more.

 

I adore NCIS. I've been downloading the early seasons as I only started watching it once Ziva came into the story, and I really wanted to find out who the hell Kate was... I'm about half-way through season two right now, and I can see what you mean about the early characterization being better. The recent episodes don't quite live up to the older ones, but they're still entertaining, and I hate missing them.

It's Mossad.

 

Episodic?

Anyway, I keep catching this, and I enjoy it every time I watch it, but it's never grabbed me enough to actively seek it out to watch. It's just one of those shows that you watch if there's nothing else on (which does put it above stuff like CSI, for me).

 

Actually, it's המוסד‎.

I loved NCIS for the first... 4-ish, 5-ish seasons, but after a while the status quo seemed to drag on a bit. Still a damn good watch.

 

This, but there's one slight problem I have with NCIS LA: You could name it ANYTHING else, and it wouldn't change a damn thing. It isn't technically a Navy Investigative show, it's like a spy show...They don't hardly ever have anything to do with the Navy/Marines in it.

 

Serialized?

This. I've never been more of a passing fan of the show, but even I saw this happening. Rare it is that we see characters continuously evolve in a show rather than evolve for a few seasons, then devolve into easily identifiable traits.

The show has also reached the point where it needs to start having secondary or tertiary characters turn evil to create some kind of drama. A recent two-parter had some cop who'd been an on-off character for years, someone who'd also been good, turn out to be bad for the sake of eliciting a sense of betrayal. Never a good sign when the writers can't be bothered creating a new, continuous (or even temporary) believable foe.

 

I think the show was best in the season three. Ziva kicks ass, and the dynamic between her and Tony is really entertaining. I liked Kate, but I'll take a Mossad assassin any day. Season seven was good, too, but eight hasn't really held my attention too well. It feels a bit humdrum, a bit predictable-- which is odd, as it's the #1 scripted show on American television. Still, though, it beats everything else.

 

NCIS is one of my favorite shows because if how awesome Gibbs is, but yeah, he's pretty much a know it all the entire time sort and that really kills suspense building in some episodes. Tony was done as a much smarter agent, and when Gibbs was in Mexico after he quit he handled shit just fine. Flash forward after his girlfriend left and he's a damned clown.

Ziva's fine, I can only think of a few times theyy had to deal with secret stuff, mostly it's just investigating crimes. I mean c'mon if you're alright with the idea of the crime scene investigators, ((who are IRL nerds who run lab work and swab shit from the scene)) running around solving crimes and stuff, you can suspend your disbelief for her.

Tony and Ziva just need to fuck already, like 3 seasons ago and be done with it, I'm tired of the build up. But them Tony killed her boyfriend, and she flipped the fuck out, and now she's back to flirting with him again, which makes no sense. I also get a kick out of the writers never bringing up again the episode where they were undercover "fake" fucking in a hotel room, where both of them pretty much came out and said something more might have happened.

I like NCIS:LA because of O'donnell. When he goes undercover the fluid way he changes personalities is something I never would of figured could come from him. LL Cool J does alright, but he's still a pretty bad actor.

 

This is all I've seen out of it.

I am thoroughly convinced the writers are fucking with me.

 

I've watched the series a few times, but I always got stuck around season 8.

Might just start from season 9 or something. There was something about S8 that always got to me.