Archive for Shane Brennan
Leroy Jethro Gibbs
is unlucky in love.
NCIS fans know this all too well, as it’s part of the fabric of the tough-as-nails special agent. But with two potential love interests in play, is his luck about to change?
“Gibbs is a great character,” says Dina Meyer, who plays madam Holly Snow. “I’d think the audience would like to see his feathers ruffled a little.”
Is she right? Partially. She checked.
“There are people who enjoyed the chemistry that Holly and Gibbs had,” Meyer says, having gone online following her first NCIS appearance, “and there are some die-hard fans who hope their beloved Gibbs stays single and sticks to his job.”
She thinks those fans need to cut their hero a break, though: “He deserves to get a little action here and there!” Meyer laughs. “If the fans really love him, right?”
Meanwhile, a more regular presence this season has been Rena Sofer (24), whose hard-a$$ attorney, M. Allison Hart, initially appeared hellbent on harassing Gibbs.
But clearly it wasn’t that simple … to the chagrin
of many fans. When the duo moved in for a kiss at the end of Sofer’s second episode, it sent groans across America.
Sofer seeks to reassure fans, however.
“One morning, the guard who stands at the front gate of my daughter’s school said, ‘I don’t like you,’ out of nowhere,” she says. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He’s like, ‘What are you doing to Gibbs?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, that. Trust me. You’re gonna like me.’”
In a way, Hart has transitioned from a character you love to hate to (arguably) one you hate to love. It’s unclear to everyone exactly what Hart and Gibbs are doing.
Unclear even to Sofer and Mark Harmon. Which is fine by her.
“This is one of the few shows on TV that doesn’t treat its audience like idiots,” the brunette says. “I really don’t know whether it’s a hookup or not, to be perfectly honest. There’s a very ambiguous feeling about the two of them. I love that!”
So does executive producer Shane Brennan, for that matter. “We love ambiguity on NCIS,” he says, noting that Hart will be featured heavily in this May’s final episodes.
Everything will not be AOK on the April 6 episode of CBS’ NCIS, tvguidemagazine.com has learned exclusively. No, it’s not more “Tiva” drama—this time, it’s a triangle among Tony (Michael Weatherly), McGee (Sean Murray) and… homicide detective Phillip McCadden (played by Adam Kaufman, Poppy Montgomery’s on- and off-screen squeeze from Without a Trace).
“McGee will let jealousy get the best of him when a bromance develops between Tony and McCadden—whom Tony affectionately dubs ‘McC,’” says exec producer/show runner Shane Brennan. The jilted dude even comes up with a nickname of his own for the fast friends, calling them “T-Cad.” Who needs Tiva?
NCIS executive producer Shane Brennan’s tease that Mark Harmon’s Gibbs will be forced to make a “life-changing decision” this May has fans wondering what that entails.
Theories are in no short supply, but one of the more alarming is that Gibbs’ actions, which “will impact every member of the team,” mean Harmon may be leaving the show.
Is there any legitimacy to that? The actor himself weighed in to EW.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure,” Mark Harmon
said. “That may not stop them from getting rid of me, but I’m having a blast. That hasn’t changed since day one.”
“I have no plans to leave. I have a contract with significant more time on it. That may not stop the producers from getting rid of me, but I have no plans to take myself out.”
That settles that, but still leaves the question of what crisis will befall his character at season’s end and how it ties into Rena Sofer’s lawyer/lover character, M. Allison Hart.
What will the ramifications of Gibbs’ big decision be?
“Whatever [fans are] thinking, they’re wrong,” Harmon says.
“It is never the obvious [thing] on this show. As always, these writers make you think something but it is almost never what you think will happen. I think that it’s good to keep people guessing, especially after seven years.”
“I think it is time to see these people away from their job and with their girlfriends or family. It is time to let out some of those nuggets. We’ve earned them. Fans come for the procedure but we have earned the right to break off another piece of the puzzle.”
Getting back to the big May season finale mystery, Harmon hints that although Sofer’s character plays a part, however “she is not alone. Others will play a part, [too].”
As for what brings another attractive Gibbs adversary, D.C. madam Holly Snow
(Dina Meyer), back to NCIS? “Gibbs will use her in an investigation,” explains Harmon.
“She is an interesting ally, an odd ally, an uncomfortable ally in some ways. But the writers like what Dina did before. A madam character is really pretty fascinating.”
You NCIS
fans must be sick and tired of Rena Sofer news, but from the looks of things she’s not going anywhere – at least for the mean time.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Sofer’s Mr. Gibbs-calling feisty lawyer character will not only be making a return on Tuesday’s episode “Mother’s Day” she will be back for “multiple episodes” in May.
Is that the sound of groaning? It gets worse.
Adds NCIS executive producer Shane Brennan, M. Allison Hart will “set in motion a chain of events that forces Gibbs (Mark Harmon) to make a life-changing decision,” a decision which he adds “will impact every member of his team.”
This bit of information suspiciously sounds connected to the little hints that Brennan gave previously regarding the much-anticipated NCIS finale, where he said elements of which have already been included in past episodes this season.
He added then: “The audience has already seen some of the elements – we’ve already started the finale in a way. You won’t see it in every episode, but we’ll tease it out. It’ll be surprising, and this year it’s going to be controversial.”
Could it be a romantic decision for Gibbs, despite the apparent unpopularity of Sofer’s Attorney Hart?
NCIS
returns Tuesday with an episode where Gibbs’ former mother-in-law becomes a witness in a murder investigation.
The only question is when.
And if the wait period for the NCIS episode that featured DiNozzo’s family were any indication, don’t expect to be introduced to Abby’s in the near future. Points out NCIS executive producer Shane Brennan: “We waited seven seasons to meet DiNozzo’s father.”
Good point.
On the other hand, Brennan confirms that we will get to know more about Abby’s backstory eventually, although it won’t necessarily be a meet the Sciuto installment like what happened on “Flesh and Blood” featuring Tony’s dad, and his many uncles and button-collecting grandfather were mentioned.
“We’re not going to wait that long to introduce one of Abby’s relatives. And I wouldn’t even say her relatives — I’d say more of her personal life. The audience loves Abby and I think there’s a lot of rich detail to be explored with that character, so, yes, it will happen.”
There had been other sort of Abby-centric episodes, such as “Bloodbath,” “Driven,” “Cover Story,” and “Silent Night,” where we learned that Abby loves Christmas.
Asked whether we’d see her family in an interview more than a year ago on Bullz-Eye.com, here’s Perette’s response.
“I don’t make up these things; the writers do. But I have all of my own ideas! We know that Abby has a little brother. We know that. And I keep saying, ‘Where’s her brother?’ I’m not sure, but in my head, I have decided…which means, to the writers, absolutely nothing.
“It definitely comes up in the Christmas episode (“Silent Night”), because I played it that way – or I certainly hope it comes across that way, or at least there’s a question mark – as to whether Abby’s father is alive. I don’t think he is. In my head, he’s not. And that also has a lot to do with her relationship with Gibbs. Gibbs lost his daughter, Abby lost her dad.”
The verdict is in. At least as far as ratings are concerned, romance on NCIS
isn’t exactly a crowd-drawer, after the sort of Tiva-centric episode last week brought in the lowest numbers for NCIS this season. A measly 20.15 million (measly in NCIS standards) tuned in to watch Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) exchange meaningful looks and lines in Paris, in what was eventually deemed a cop-out for the writers who didn’t want to anger either side in the Tiva shippers divide.
That being said, Entertainment Weekly reports that a romance may be up for Gibbs (Mark Harmon) this season. This early, in fact, they have “started laying the bread crumbs” for the big storyline that will reportedly happen on the second half of this season.
“It’ll go down as one of the big moments on NCIS,” big boss Shane Brennan teases.
Adds Brennan: “There’s a scene coming up that will stir up a lot of conversation. Mark is at his finest in that episode. he does an amazing job. It’s a really great performance. The audience is going to love it, but they’re also going to go, ‘Oh my God – what’s happening?!”
The big storyline may just include Rena Sofer’s ass-kicking lawyer character M. Allison Hart, who previously told TV Guide that she would be insane to not be interested in being Harmon’s love interest.
“Who in their right mind would not love to be a potential love interest for Mark Harmon?” Sofer said. “I have absolutely no idea. I am certainly very happy to stay where I’m at if Brennan sees that as a possibility. I’m not saying that is a possibility, but boy, wouldn’t that be nice?”
With confirmation that her character will return for at least one more episode this season, can it really be Sofer? Says Brennan: “Well, they seem to hate each other, so I don’t know how that’s going to happen.”
Cote de Pablo is snacking on olives in a hotel bar, considering a key relationship that is about to come into focus again on NCIS, which emerged as TV’s No. 1 show in its seventh season. In a sweeps episode called “Jet Lag,” her character, Ziva David, spends most of the hour trapped on an overseas commercial flight with an unknown killer—but, more importantly, trapped in the company of Michael Weatherly’s Special Agt. Tony DiNozzo, with whom she may forever enjoy an unconsummated sexual tension.
Or is it possible that it was already consummated, years ago, and only she and he—and a minority of alert viewers—figured it out?
“Michael and I have spoken about it lightly, because we don’t want to go into it too deeply,” she says. “But we both have different views on what actually happened in ‘Undercovers’ [the 2005 episode in which Tony and Ziva spent time at a fancy hotel]. In many ways, it’s helped us play out whatever it is that’s happened since [with our characters]. Michael has his own agenda and I have mine, and sometimes it’s a complete conflict of ideas. It’s like the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus….”
Suddenly the sound of the hotel pianist is overtaken by the tinny strains of…”I Think I Love You.” Weatherly hovers behind us, impishly brandishing an iPhone on which he has cued up an apparently revelatory oldie by the Partridge Family. “He’s been doing that lately,” she laughs, “pulling up that song every time we have scenes of ‘ambiguous sexual tension.’”
Ambiguity, thy name is “Jet Lag.” In the January 26 episode, the noncouple collectively known to fans as “Tiva” is escorting a witness from France back to D.C.; in midflight, they receive intelligence from Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and McGee (Sean Murray) back at headquarters that an unknown would-be assailant is also on board. “It’s a locked-room mystery at 33,000 feet,” says exec producer Shane Brennan. But before that, there are some opening scenes set in the City of Love.
Maybe what Weatherly should be cuing up is the Clash track that goes, “It’s always tease, tease, tease…” As Brennan says, “There’s a lovely sort of undercurrent, because Tony and Ziva have some difficulties in Paris with their hotel room, and we end up not being quite sure what the sleeping arrangements were. And we have a lot of fun with that. It’s the first time we’ve really dipped our toe back in the Tony/Ziva relationship since the big fallout of what happened” after Tony killed Ziva’s Israeli boyfriend at the end of last season.
The episode features another big fight scene, but this time, it’s more mano-a-womano combat. Says Weatherly: “I am knocked in the chest once, out of the frame, and then she has a huge fight sequence to complete. And then I just come in and straighten my tie like Roger Moore and say, ‘I’ll take that hot towel now.’” We’ll see if he’s kidding or just provided a major spoiler.
A 767 jet was re-created on the show’s Los Angeles’ soundstages, with no stinting on the claustrophobia. “It was 14 hours a day in an airplane for three days in a row,” says Weatherly, “so it was essentially like we flew to Greece every day. The good news is that when you’re stuck on an airplane with Cote, you are constantly amused. You’re singing songs from musicals you barely know, like Barnum and Show Boat.” (De Pablo has a musical- theater background.)
At times the realism was terrifying. Weatherly took catnaps between shots and had woozy “moments of sheer panic, because you don’t know what flight you’re on. You wake up and see a dolly grip with his utility belt walk by the wing and you’re like, ‘AHHH!,’ like William Shatner. We reference that Twilight Zone ['Nightmare at 20,000 Feet']. Of course DiNozzo has to go for the Shatner impression: ‘I … can’t … take anymore!’”
Any hints about what some more earthbound sweeps episodes might hold? “In an episode that will air very shortly, Gibbs is hurt,” teases Brennan. The show runner swears—swears—his philosophy isn’t all that sweeps-centric: “When American Idol comes on, we really have an uphill battle. So my attitude is, forget sweeps—let’s just make every episode a sweeps episode.”
The emotional stakes typically don’t get too high on NCIS until the season finale. But de Pablo says the trauma that Ziva went through during her kidnapping and torture at the start of this season hasn’t completely been forgotten amid the current good cheer. “There’s an episode that we just finished shooting, called ‘Masquerade,’ with a scene in which I’m talking about the things that happened in Africa we still don’t know about. In true NCIS fashion, it’s never quite addressed, but it’s implied that bad things happened. The way it was written was sort of glazed over, but it was so there. We’re constantly being bombarded with new information, or else the characters just wouldn’t grow or go anywhere.”
But we don’t have to worry too much for now about Tiva going anywhere, except, possibly, in your imagination. When it comes to the Parisian frolic in “Jet Lag,” says Weatherly, “There are a lot of different ways to watch this episode. If you go in thinking that something happened, this will confirm thinking that something happened. But if you go in skeptical, you might think, ‘Ah, see? They said pretty much that nothing happened.’ It holds up a mirror to your own preconceived idea.”
Cue the Partridges again. “This is where I get into our theme song”—which is purely Weatherly’s folly, and has yet to show up on any episode or soundtrack CD—”and anyone who enjoys the chemistry between Tony and Ziva will understand that it is a theme song of ambiguity. ‘I think I love you!’ Now where does the word ‘think’ come into ‘love’? Right? ‘But what am I so afraid of?’ I’m afraid you might be a Mossad assassin and try to kill me? I’m afraid you might be an irresponsible 13-year-old frat boy who might not take this seriously? I’d like to go on YouTube and find some clever soul out there has fashioned an NCIS clip job to ‘I Think I Love You’ as an ode to the ambiguity of their love, or not-love.”
From your lips, Michael, to the fan base’s ears.
All the Tiva fans (and haters) can’t probably wait for it. On the January 26 episode of NCIS, Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) are sent to the world’s most romantic city Paris and end up having to share a hotel room. On “Jetlag” the two’s assignment to escort a government witness back from Paris encounters a road bump when they learn a hit man may be on their flight home.
But outside this whole procedural stuff, NCIS fans want to know one thing: if the whole set up will result in anything concrete, or will it just be a mighty tease.
“The episode puts them in the most romantic city in the world,” NCIS executive producer Shane Brennan tells Entertainment Weekly, “and it puts them in the same hotel room.”
But more importantly, Brennan adds, the two realize that while “it’s a long road back” there is that realization that “the spark is still there.”
“It doesn’t mean that something is going to be resolved, but it does mean that the journey may have started again,” he closes. So does this mean several seasons worth of flirting down the drain?
The showrunner raises some valid points, though: if you know the kind of rift that the two had in the last season of NCIS, it’s easy to understand why the road back would indeed be a “long” one.
Previously, however, Brennan did say that, “shippers will be happy” with the episode. “There is a scene where Tony and Ziva are outside having coffee in a French restaurant and they end up riding away on a little motor scooter,” Brennan said. “It is very romantic-looking and it is very French and it is very Tony DiNozzo.”
But if we remember it right, this is the same thing he said regarding the season 6 closer: the Tiva fans would love it, and we all know what happened in that stretch.
Nevertheless, if indeed nothing happens on the Paris episode, will it at least mean the start of a long journey back for Tiva?
Gena Rowlands is headed to NCIS, and she’s bringing a world of pain with her.
Sources confirm to me exclusively that the three-time Emmy winner has been cast in the potentially recurring role of Joann, Gibbs’ intelligent, upscale mother-in-law.
As exec producer Shane Brennan recently told me, the character’s arrival will shed light on Gibbs’ past, unleashing a wave of heartache, anger and blame in the process. You know, standard mother-in-law stuff.
Rowlands makes her NCIS debut in March.
