Drama
Alien: Earth
FX’s ‘Alien: Earth’ is just the latest graphically violent entry in the already graphically violent ‘Alien’ franchise.
Wouldn’t it be cool if crime procedurals on TV actually lowered crime rates in your city? Why, given the level of crime-show saturation on television these days, real-life felonies would be a hazy memory by now. Judges would play Candy Crush while sitting around waiting for another case to come along. Lawyers would be flipping burgers. And police officers, trying to remember what detective work kinda-sorta looks like, would watch crime procedurals on TV.
Naturally, they’d need to watch CBS, which deals in more crime than the Joker. From Blue Bloods to CSI to NCIS, this network has cannily used canned cop shows to become the most-watched broadcast channel around.
Now add NCIS: New Orleans, the second spinoff in CBS’ durable NCIS franchise (part of the primetime schedule since 2003). Like its predecessors, the series focuses on a branch of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service—this one located (as you might’ve guessed) in New Orleans. Special agent Dwayne “King” Pride leads this particular unit, solving military-related crimes across much of the Southeast United States. He’s joined in his work by Alabama native Christopher LaSalle, Merri Brody (a transfer from NCIS’ Great Lakes division), medical examiner Dr. Loretta Wade and her assistant, Sebastian Lund.
Sebastian is charming in a super-geeky way because, of course, the TV crime procedural rulebook clearly states that every show must have at least one lab-based character who’s charmingly geeky. And NCIS: New Orleans does love to follow the rules, filling the nooks and crannies with every genre cliché possible. Crimes reliably solved in 40-45 minutes? Check. Younger actors inserted to attract the rare twentysomething who might tune in via online stream? Check. Older beloved actor leading the cast? Check out Quantum Leap’s Scott Bakula!
It’s always great to see dedicated law-enforcement officials doing their job to best of their ability, of course. But the weekly mysteries they tackle can be plagued by problematic plot points and can prompt a bit too much late-night musing about the dark underbelly of our society. There are mild profanities thrown in. We see dead bodies and blood. And the camera sometimes peeks into the autopsy room for a bit of gross-out grimness. At least the NCIS shows, unlike the oozingly gory CSI exhibitions, don’t camp out there.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
A petty thief falls to his death. In his batch of stolen goods, police find an old Navy sidearm. The NCISers quickly discover that the gun has been missing for 40 years—and should’ve been a key bit of evidence in the murder case of its owner.
The victim was Jewish, and the crime scene made it appear that he was lynched. (We see pictures of the hanged man.) Exhumation reveals a skeleton with a hole in the skull. (Sabastian hangs a dummy as part of their investigation.) Suspects fight with agents, trading punches and throw-downs. A dead body is shown on the sidewalk.
There’s a stray line about having “two mothers before it was all the rage.” We hear about a one-night stand. References are made to the racism that doomed the original case, and a son refers to his father as a “violent, drunk, racist son of a b–ch.” A woman says she used to walk around in bikini tops—if she wore a top at all.
We hear a rabbi pray as the victim’s body is re-interred. We see that despite his daughter’s complaints, Dwayne’s doing the right thing by her when he befriends her boyfriends. Characters raise glasses of wine in a toast and say “amen” after an informal, non-religious Thanksgiving blessing. They also say “b–ch,” “b–tard,” and “d–n” (once or twice each).
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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