I wasn't going to start rewatching NCIS yet but I was curious on the episode commentary for this episode so decided to start earlier than planned
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Episode commentary is by Steven D. Binder (episode writer, executive producer/show runner), Sean Harmon ("Young Gibbs"), & Adam Campbell ("Young Ducky"). I'm presuming this is a covid thing but they actually show them during the commentary. Normally you just have the episode playing & the audio commentary goes on top & you don't see them. But this started with video from all three introducing who they are then went into a split screen thing. Oh no they changed it again. As each person talks sometimes they showed their video only with a tiny screen of the episode.
I took photos to show what I mean
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two
At the start Sean was in the trunk of the car the whole time they are filming the bit before the reveal which was around two hours
When writing the episode, Steven, had a few things he wanted to show. He wanted to show growth for Gibbs & Ducky in both the past & present, & he wanted to make the NCIS office a character. That's why things are found in the building during the episode.
Adam: "Sean, your father is a good looking dude."
Sean: [laughs] "Yeah, its, uh. I'm fortunate that I got a dad who, you know, keeps himself in shape & eats well & all that good stuff. People start falling apart otherwise. It's nice."
aww Steven's daughter was 4 month old at the time of filming this episode & he brought her to the set, she took one look at Mark & just reached out to him (I think he said 4 month, could've been 4 years)
Steven writes some episodes just to get Gibbs to say certain lines
. In this case it was "Where's Waldo"
At one point Young Gibbs may have been more verbal, up until 'an event' (I presume they mean Shannon & Kelly's death), but they (Mark included) decided that it was best to keep the mute aspect of Gibbs as just being who he has always been.
Adam complimented Steven on writing British & they started talking about how Steven does his research on British idioms & how David McCallum would call him out if he got something wrong (thankfully has only happened once!). Then Steven mentioned that he uses some of the idioms he's come across now - one of his favourites being "have you lost the plot?". My mind is now blown. It is an amazing phrase, how do Americans not use this? Another thing Adam comments on - Americans say "I could care less" & British say "I couldn't care less", & prefers the British way
. I think Australians say both, but more use the British one there. We definitely have "have you lost the plot" though.
The suit that Adam holds is an easter egg to a suit that Mark wore at some point.
Interestingly when watching shows Steven doesn't like flashback episodes, but then he also thinks NCIS makes them work
Adam asks Steven if it is hard to keep track of everything when writing things like this. Steven addresses the Ducky knowing Shannon plot hole - in the episode Young Gibbs & Ducky talk about a woman but they never say her name & Ducky doesn't know much about her. Fans of course know who they're talking about, but Ducky himself doesn't. Then when they meet again it is much, much later, so Ducky remains in the dark.
The wall McGee cuts is a fake wall built out about a foot in front of their actual wall
It was the first episode they filmed
The house is sort of explained too - they had more dialogue about Gibbs liking the house but it didn't all fit. What they wanted to explain was that he really liked the place which is why he rented it later on. Luck & fate was on his side I guess?
Gibbs' basement looks like Mark's actual workshop (according to Sean)
There's a look Young Gibbs does before he hops on the bus to go see Shannon. Sean says it was something he did but he can't say what it was
Not sure what that is about...
Steven claims at the end here that none of the franchise does something special for their milestones
... I guess maybe not in the same way but at least for the core of the show I'd say LA did
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anyway, an interesting commentary. I liked being able to see them & see their reactions, instead of just hearing. That was a nice change so thank you covid for that. I'm glad they provided some explanations for the questions raised in the episode. I still think they're splitting hairs over the Ducky knowing about Shannon thing but it does make sense how they said he didn't know who Gibbs was talking about & then it was years later. Gibbs wouldn't have said anything had Ducky remembered & asked if he'd gone after that woman. But presumably this episode is the point where Ducky joins NCIS (or NIS as it was then). Does he not learn or ask why Gibbs joined NCIS/NIS too? I can't help it, I keep finding questions... can we get Gibbs & Ducky re-meeting in an episode to fill in the gaps?