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I was watching NCIS on Tuesday and pondering one possible reason why the show's so dang popular, especially after so many years: the actors' ages. At this point, there is no lead character under thirty. Cote de Pablo (Ziva) and Sean Murray (McGee) are the youngest at 30 and 32. Michael Weatherly (Tony) and Pauley Perrette (Abby) are 42 and 41. (I've posted about the cognitive dissonance of that before.) David McCallum (Ducky) is 77.
The show's star, Mark Harmon (Gibbs), is 59. And with him comes a whole host of recurring characters of similar age (Fornell, 64, and Franks, 62, for example). I've noticed, especially in recent seasons, that a great number of episodes focus on this cohort as the primary characters, with younger characters in supporting roles. There have also been a lot of focused-on older actors as guest stars--Gibbs's dad, 82, Gibbs's mother-in-law, 76, Tony's dad, 80, and last week, the lead guest stars were 70 and 87. That's a lot of silver hair, especially for an action-focused military/police procedural.
But more important is not just the ages of the actors, but the storylines they get. It's pure male wish fulfillment. Almost all of the older featured actors are men. And they frequently get much younger female love interests. Gibbs's antagonistic love interest last season was a decade and a half younger than him. Sometime a few seasons ago Ducky got a romance storyline with a girl several decades younger than him. The two older women stars I can remember (Gibbs's mother-in-law and Ducky's mother) were both un-sexualized maternal figures.
In last week's episode, we had the other half of the wish fulfillment fantasy. ( Spoilers for Worst Nightmare, or the writers saw Taken and decided it would make a good NCIS episode )
I don't see too many other action shows on TV that have baby boomers as their action leads--the contrast with NCIS:LA coming on right after it is jarring. So maybe that's the secret to their success. They're practically the only show exploiting that market.
The show's star, Mark Harmon (Gibbs), is 59. And with him comes a whole host of recurring characters of similar age (Fornell, 64, and Franks, 62, for example). I've noticed, especially in recent seasons, that a great number of episodes focus on this cohort as the primary characters, with younger characters in supporting roles. There have also been a lot of focused-on older actors as guest stars--Gibbs's dad, 82, Gibbs's mother-in-law, 76, Tony's dad, 80, and last week, the lead guest stars were 70 and 87. That's a lot of silver hair, especially for an action-focused military/police procedural.
But more important is not just the ages of the actors, but the storylines they get. It's pure male wish fulfillment. Almost all of the older featured actors are men. And they frequently get much younger female love interests. Gibbs's antagonistic love interest last season was a decade and a half younger than him. Sometime a few seasons ago Ducky got a romance storyline with a girl several decades younger than him. The two older women stars I can remember (Gibbs's mother-in-law and Ducky's mother) were both un-sexualized maternal figures.
In last week's episode, we had the other half of the wish fulfillment fantasy. ( Spoilers for Worst Nightmare, or the writers saw Taken and decided it would make a good NCIS episode )
I don't see too many other action shows on TV that have baby boomers as their action leads--the contrast with NCIS:LA coming on right after it is jarring. So maybe that's the secret to their success. They're practically the only show exploiting that market.