NCIS: Agent Afloat (Season Six)

At the end of the last episode there was the vague feeling that Gibbs' team had been reassembled, but as we discover this week that is not the case, and poor old DiNozzo is still stuck out at sea on a ship where he is less than popular being the only person policing the navy. Someone's suicide, however, brings him back into contact with his old team and despite Vance determined to stick him out at sea (Gibbs' belief being that Vance is punishing DiNozzo is ultimately challenged by Vance, which does beg the question why did he bother to send DiNozzo away?) DiNozzo finds he is able to get some land time investigating the drug angle of the case.

Last season I felt that DiNozzo had begun to suffer as a character, not just in him becoming little more than the 'party guy' of the team, but also in the fact that he was more often than not given absolutely nothing to do. The great thing about DiNozzo in the earlier seasons was that he was the 'party guy' but he continually surprised Kate and McGee by getting his job done quickly and efficiently without either of them seeing it happen. This episode reminds us that DiNozzo is the senior agent of the team for a reason, and even if McGee and Ziva can't be bothered to show him the respect he deserves, Gibbs most certainly does. DiNozzo's addressing of Gibbs as Dad is a nice touch that, for the character, is probably more true than he would care to admit.

The rest of the case is relatively straightforward and uses the "incidental character who we see for a scene" killer as opposed to having some sort of logical raionale and deductable case. Poor old Ducky is given even less to do than he has been in the last few episodes, this week barely doing anything more than putting in a cameo appearance, while Abby is in a similar position, though at least she gets more character interaction with DiNozzo to make up for it. Vance is becoming increasingly more amiable and less shadowy, which is nice, but does rather mock his shredding of the document in his record. Hopefully this will be brought up again rather than ignored.

Two episodes into the new season and it has yet to set a foot wrong, and certainly pushing in a better direction that the last season.

"B+"