Season 8

[Spooky]

Didn't Mark Harmon and a couple of the other actors more or less demand the producer be fired a few years back? Or am I thinking or another show? I'm pretty sure Harmon (and possibly others) issued a "us or him" demand. Pearl, Google that as I am too ai ya lazy.

I know Don Bellisario is the creator of the show and he left it "by choice" a few years back, but we all know what "by choice" can mean.

[Spooky]

http://www.tvguide.com/news/exclusive-ncis-boss-8335.aspx

The tense NCIS standoff between Mark Harmon and Don Bellisario that I first told you about two weeks ago has ended as dramatically as it began: Sources confirm that the veteran producer has agreed to step down as showrunner, effective immediately.

I hear he'll likely be replaced by co-executive producer (and longtime Bellisario collaborator) Chas. Floyd Johnson and headwriter Shane Brennan.

As NCIS' creator, Bellisario will still retain his executive producer title (much like AS-P did on Gilmore Girls), but he is no longer in charge of the show. He's not leaving CBS, however. (Lucky them!) He'll develop two new projects as part of his overall deal with the network.

As I reported, insiders say Harmon has been frustrated for some time with the long hours that resulted from Bellisario's "chaotic management style." And in mid-April, things came to a boil.

"Mark's been working every single day, 16 hours a day," the mole told me. "Don tries to micro-manage everything. Script pages get faxed to the set at the last minute, and Mark is tired of dealing with the huge impact that makes on his life."

Shortly after my original story ran, an NCIS insider sent me this cryptic message via e-mail: "The situation over at NCIS? It's much worse than you think."

That much is now obvious.

So, what do you guys think? Did the right man step down? Based on the results of this poll, I'm guessing your answer is, "Hell, yeah!"

[TinkTanker]

So Sasha may have been the first to have enough and wanted out of the long(er than normal) hours. I know when David Milch was having problems with drugs and alcohol on NYPD a lot of actors wanted out. Sounds like a similar situation with actors being fed up was going on here.

[Phyll33]

  Sounds like there were some major problems which may have been the reason she left but why didn't she say
so after she left. It's not as if it was a big secret especially since all of that happened before she gave that interview
last year.

[Pearl@32]

Yeah for a while there they were working an obscene amount of hours per week. I'd have to find the article again, but I think it said up to 150 hours. That's INSANITY. While it paid off for the quality of the show (NCIS is a consistent people pleaser) I'm not sure it really paid off for the cast and crew.

Sad thing happened this week on the set: a security guard got hit and ended up dying at the hospital.

[Phyll33]

Yeah for a while there they were working an obscene amount of hours per week. I'd have to find the article again, but I think it said up to 150 hours. That's INSANITY. While it paid off for the quality of the show (NCIS is a consistent people pleaser) I'm not sure it really paid off for the cast and crew.

Sad thing happened this week on the set: a security guard got hit and ended up dying at the hospital.

  There doesn't seem to be the quality that they used to have though. More shots outside of the office and in
other countries. More detail and indepth storylines seem to be missing. The characters override that some
but on going storylines have seemed to have disappeared with more stand alone shows now.  I'm getting a little
tired of everything being done in the office, lab, or morgue. 

[Pearl@32]

There doesn't seem to be the quality that they used to have though. More shots outside of the office and in
other countries. More detail and indepth storylines seem to be missing. The characters override that some
but on going storylines have seemed to have disappeared with more stand alone shows now.  I'm getting a little
tired of everything being done in the office, lab, or morgue. 

I think that's why I stopped watching CSI.

I think they save all the in-depth stuff for the beginning and end of the season now (i.e., Gibbs's past). Gone is La Grenouille (had to copy and paste that one!) and the whole Tony/Jeanne arc.

What makes formulaic shows like NCIS, CSI, and House (and even Castle for that matter) where the setup is basically the same every week is the characters. If you don't care about them, you really don't care about the show.

[Spooky]

McSkellageek is freakin' me out man.

[TinkTanker]

I quit watching CSI and Bones because they attempted to make it their mission in life to gross me out as much as possible. And they usually succeeded.

[Eric]

I quit watching CSI and Bones because they attempted to make it their mission in life to gross me out as much as possible. And they usually succeeded.

We watched five minutes of a Spartacus episode, and saw probably as many necks being sliced, heads being cut off and even head chopped in half.
I can't imagine Bones doing worse than that.