NCIS season 5 thread (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

Not to mention that the dog wrangler probably wouldn't want his very expensive rented dog shaved, and the fact that it is a heck of a lot harder to get an animal to stay still, breathe through a mask and just generally pretend to be under anaesthesia than it is to get a human actor to do so. (Or to literally "play dead")

You've got 42 minutes of screen time to tell your story, and a limited budget for actors, sets, props, etc. So, do you write in another speaking role ($) for a military veterinarian to come in for one scene to perform an accurate-looking operation on a dog ($), allocating several precious minutes to introducing the character and giving him/her a dramatic reason to be there or do you use your regulars, fudge the details and concentrate on the emotional and dramatic interplay between Abby, Ducky and Mr. Palmer?

If you look at regular medical procedures on non-medical shows they are scarcely better than this one. I guess we all get a bit ticked off when we see something outrageously false about our own areas of expertise but - seriously - especially on a TV budget/schedule there are going to be shortcuts and liberties taken. Is a lot of the computer and network stuff you see on TV total crap? You're damned right it is. Do I want to "hurl" everytime a show lets a computer do something magical or somebody instantly link two incompatible systems or crack a security system in 10 minutes when it should take two weeks and a roomful of machines to do it? Nope. I know doctors, cops and lawyers who spot similar flaws in every show they watch, and I don't doubt that plumbers, jockeys and UPS guys do the same. But the fact is we all know that the reality of our jobs is frequently boring and nobody would ever make a TV series out of it.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Josh Dial]

To be fair, if the image is digital in nature, you actually can produce a decent image - though it doesn't happen instantly like on the show, and you are correct, it's not going to be lifelike

Also, you actually can "pull up" traffic video, sometimes in real time. My university has a lab that works on technology that does just that. Granted, Calgary has only a million people, so it might not be as feasible in Washington, etc. Further, assuming someone has pre-pulled the files for you, you really can "pull up" medical records of suspects, especially if it's been recently referenced (I assume off-screen at least someone is looking at this stuff).

But yes, for the most part, NCIS takes a few liberties with reality, but then again, people don't actually have super powers (Heroes), smoke monsters don't really fly around tropical islands (LOST), and FBI advisors don't share their cases with their colleagues or parents (Numb3rs). However, NCIS is still one of the best ensemble shows on television, and easily the best procedural (CSI is about as far from reality as you can get for a crime drama).

cheers!

 

[Julian Reville]

It was no problem for JAG to hire Trisha Yearwood to portray a military psychologist, why would it be a problem for NCIS to fork out a few bucks for a pseudo-real veterinarian?

Sorry, guys, I just can't buy it. I worked too hard for my DVM degree to agree with having it portrayed this way.

 

[Josh Dial]

Well, I think you should pretty much give up watching ALL television and movies then, if you are hoping for reality - heck, even reality TV isn't really real.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

So you're comparing stunt-casting a celebrity to goose ratings for sweeps month to wasting money on an extra speaking role for a single scene that won't add a single rating point or any dramatic value to the episode, but will salve the egos of verterinarians everywhere? I'm sorry, but I think you have lost all sense of perspective on this matter.

If I owned a studio and a producer on one of my shows did that I'd fire him on the spot.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Julian Reville]

You'd fire someone for spending a few grand who was attempting to make a believable plotline? I guess those Hollywood types are really hurting for money, poor babies.

That really amazes me.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yes, I'd fire someone for wasting time and money on something that not only wasn't a "plotline" but which was barely a footnote to a minor scene, an item of such cosmic unimportance that I can't believe I've spent as much time as I have discussing it, and I certainly don't propose to waste any more on it. Mountain. Molehill. Do the math.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Randy Tennison]

As someone who works with digital surveillance video on a daily basis, I can tell you that I would kill for the abilities portrayed on these shows. They just don't exist.

If you have an image made up of pixels, and you blow up the image, you get . . .bigger pixels. You can't pull detail out of 6 rectangles of differing color.

Yes, you can use software to try to extrapolate what the image might be by comparing using an algorhythm that looks at the images before and after, but, if after doing it, you can read a license plate, count yourself lucky.

In the business, we call this the "CSI Factor". People believe you can do the things that are shown on TV. They expect it. And when you don't do it, they question why, not realizing that it's fiction.

My favorite one was on Las Vegas, when they were reviewing a recorded image, and turned on the "infrared", which showed what was under the clothing. I laughed very hard at that one.

 

[DavidJ]

Thanks for speaking to this Randy. I don't work on it like you do, but I am often asked about it and I research the available tools from time to time to stay on top of things so that I am not completely ignorant. I was pretty sure that despite recent improvements it was still not up to the standards of most of what we see on TV. It nice though that every now and then we'll be watching a show that actually portrays things in a semi-believable manner. It's not a lot, but it does happen.

 

[Hugh Jackes]

As others have said, anyone who has an unusual job seen portrayed on TV or the movies will see their job portrayed wrong.

To paraphase Julian, "Sorry, guys, I just can't buy it. I worked too hard for my ... dolphins ...to agree with having it portrayed this way"

 

[Josh Dial]

As someone who also works with digital video, I am sorry to break it to you that they DO exist. Of course they don't work like they do on TV shows, but, as I said, if the camera captures a purely digital image, you can actually zoom in to a certain degree, and clean it up.

No, "cleaning it up" doesn't make it crystal clear, and no, you can't zoom in enough to see the reflection on some guys sunglasses, then use the shadow to triangulate his location on the earth, and then pinpoint which bank he's going to rob, but you CAN do things like pull a still from a red light camera (sadly, Calgary has these in spades), and capture the license plate - even when it's SLIGHTLY blurry.

Home surveillance and personal security is, of course, different. No law enforcement is going to see that westpoint ring on someone's finger when they are a big blur on the video.

But seriously, it is techinically possible to clean up certain types of images, especially ones from high end, recently made digital cameras (and no, I don't mean personal digital cameras).

You'll note that in my post I never said "perfect, hang on your wall quality picture." But basically claiming that law enforcement works with blurry video and useless footage is false.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

But your caveat elminates exactly the "abilities" Randy was talking about, so I don't see how your ability to clean up very good quality digital video invalidates Randy's point about the absurd things seen on shows like NCIS and CSI where the team digitizes the analog VHS video footage from convenience store that hasn't put in a new tape in two years and has never cleaned the tape heads and ends up being able to read the barcode on the candy bar the killer is eating.

 

[DavidJ]

Exactly. There is a big difference between the exaggerations and worse that are often shown on tv and the cleaning up of plate image with high contrast pixels to help get a readable image.

 

[DavidJ]

No comments on this week's show? I thought it was very well done (assuming you've been following the storyline over the course of the show). It had some humor, good drama and resolution.

 

[Josh Dial]

I thought it was a really good episode. A good finish to the la grenouille arc. The scene with Jeanne and Tony was pretty heartbreaking.

 

[Julian Reville]

I was so engrossed in sticking pins in my homemade Dr. Mallard voodoo doll that I forgot to watch. :frowning:

 

[Patrick Sun]

I let out a LOL when Gibbs just kept out pulling out computer hardware from the 80s and 90s.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I thought it was a very good episode. It was nice to see Jeanne again, and good that she was at least able to get some "closure" (that awful word) with regard to her realtionship with Tony. (That whole part, including Ziva's role in events, was very well-handled.)


I'm not so sure it is finished, at least when it comes to its consequences. I think it will come up again, between Jenny and Jethro if not between her and the authorities. So... did Jenny waste The Frog? Or did the CIA guy do it? If so, how did her gun end up on La Granouille's boat? And are we ever going to find out any more about the death of Jenny's father and the odd bruise he shared with La Granouille. So many questions, so few episodes left.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Stephen Orr]

I loved that McGee was still able to get the job done with them! Kid's a genius!

 

[LarryDavenport]

I came away from the episode thinking either the Frog killed himself or Jenny's not really dead father did it.