NCIS Hawai’i: What we learned from Pilot

NCIS: Hawai’i premiered this week, adding a new chapter to the NCIS franchise. What can viewers take away from the CBS drama’s debut?

Brittany Frederick

September 21, 2021

003. There’s a wealth of backstory to get excited about

The NCIS: Hawai’i pilot laid the groundwork for interesting stories about the unit’s history. Lucy revealed that Tennant had fired her predecessor Jim Carter, with Jesse saying Carter “put himself over the team.” Plus, Jesse pointed out the fact that Tennant isn’t the first Special Agent in Charge at NCIS Pearl Harbor—not a reveal since the office has been around for a long time, but still a story point with potential.

There aren’t usually many layers to an organization in the standard network procedural. Certain characters may pop up from a team or agent’s past, but most series look almost exclusively at the here and now, and miss the opportunities that come from coloring in how a squad got here or why a unit is set up the way it is. They make the world begin and end with the characters we see every week, when in reality there are characters and systems that have come before, just like moments in a hero’s backstory that shape who they are.

It wouldn’t be shocking at all to see Carter pop up by the end of NCIS: Hawai’i season 1 as the only person who can help Tennant and company with a case. Or maybe there’s an investigation that digs into the history of the office and why Jane was brought in to take over. Jan Nash also worked on Without A Trace, which did a great episode called “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” that explored the history of the FBI’s Missing Persons Unit using a court hearing as framework. NCIS: Hawai’i could do that with a case.

Or do a half-dozen different things to give this office more depth and more credit than the genre’s usual tack of saying this current team are the only ones that matter. It’ll even make viewers appreciate this group more if we understand everything that works around them.

NCIS: Hawai’i airs Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.