NCIS: Sydney is undoubtedly a fun series.
But is it just me? Or does it sometimes veer towards too much fun and not enough of the heart that we tend to love so much about it?
While NCIS: Sydney Season 3 Episode 7’s treasure hunting and squirt gun shenanigans delivered some comical and endearing moments, and it wasn’t nearly as kooky as the Alien case, my mind wandered a few times because I wished we had more.
Tonally, NCIS: Sydney has always had a different vibe from the others in the franchise. It’s an Australian show, after all. So the team having their silly shenanigans isn’t anything new.
But for a season that delivered some intensely dark yet heartfelt content like NCIS: Sydney Season 3 Episode 2 and has an active large conspiracy that should have us all on edge, there are times when the show deviates too much, losing some of its steam.
It’s one of the reasons why Evie’s particular brand of blunt silliness has been more off-putting than endearing this season, or how characters like Trigger and Rosy feel underused.
The darker elements of the series seem to linger so far in the background that it’s hard to even recall them until they thrust them back into our face in some way. The personal elements are like grabbing at clouds: we always see them and what they could form into, but they’re always out of reach.
It feels like NCIS: Sydney Season 3 is also having a difficult time maintaining a thread of continuity that helps things flow from one episode to the next, except for the occasional lingering injury.
But when NCIS: Sydney commits to something, it is excellent, and it lures you in. Bluebird’s arc at the beginning of the season was genuinely intriguing, and it improved our understanding of the character and her dynamics.
And Trigger offers these fascinating peeks into an enigmatic character with an unknown edge, leaving me waiting for his next appearance onscreen and craving more details about his background.
But when NCIS: Sydney isn’t hitting those notes, it often feels like the characters are disappearing into shticks rather than having new layers to them.
We get these little bits and pieces about Evie and DeShawn, and then we blink, and they’re not even hinted at again, and a good tease can add the appropriate amount of intrigue.
However, if the follow-through isn’t there or if there’s too much withholding, it can feel a bit empty.
Fortunately, the one thing that remains consistent even under all of this is the found family element, which always remains endearing.
“Gold Digger” was another one of those fun, kooky episodes that made me think about CBS’s late series Blood & Treasure, as it combined an impressive code-breaking soldier with an Eidetic memory and a full-of-himself treasure hunter whose snake was apparently as large as his ego.
It felt a bit convoluted with some conspiracy elements, especially with Yumi, as bits of it jumped around, and Corbel’s father came into play as the man who brought his son into the fold and thus instigated so much of the drama.
The other cop was there to provide the usual grandstanding as he wanted to take over the case, and naturally, Mackey was not thrilled when he had control. Frankly, I spent most of the hour waiting for him somehow to be a bad guy in all of this.
But he was just a dick who now has two black eyes and can’t take his ridiculously expensive family photos with his wife and kids now.
Even the overwhelming amount of humor during the hour felt a bit odd, given that they discovered a dead man who never seemed like much of a priority in all of this.
And JD’s subplot was a man clearly struggling with the separation from his wife and trying to navigate this new stage as a family.
The hour tries to tie in a theme with fathers and children, with Joel’s father luring him into this danger and almost getting him put in prison despite his expecting a kid of his own.
He and JD bonded a bit, and I understood what they were aiming for, but it all felt a bit hollow without them digging into any of it further.
It felt like something they just threw in there for the sole purpose of selling that theme. Unfortunately, it didn’t provoke any kind of feeling.
Maybe if they had committed to it as much as they did to all the silliness, it would’ve landed better.
For JD, all he really wanted was to be able to connect with his son again, because his schedule and the hours he keeps don’t grant him the ability to have his son half of the time as he planned.
His focus on securing a Supersoaker from the ’90s, which they banned for safety reasons, led to some genuinely amusing moments and that kind of nostalgia that resonates.
He was right about kids not having the same type of fun anymore.
Despite my criticism of the humor, I did enjoy the “boys and their toys” approach that JD and Trigger had, especially when Mackey would come in deadpan and offer tips and adjustments.
Bless his heart, Trigger didn’t create a toy but a full-blown weapon once he finished tricking out that water cannon.
And I loved the little touches of Mackey genuinely trying to be a supportive friend to JD because she could see how much he was struggling.
Those are the little moments that leave you waiting for when this conspiracy business finally takes off, comes out, and potentially blows up everything. But it’s otherwise “out of sight, out of mind” there.
How is everyone else feeling about NCIS: Sydney this season?
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