NCIS, Los Angeles, Bringing a Bellisarius Production into the 21st Century at long last.

NCIS, Los Angeles, Bringing a Bellisarius Production into the 21st Century at long last.

Quick, what is different between the new Donald Bellisarius production, NCIS, Los Angeles, and his earlier programs, Magnum, P.I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG, NCIS, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Tequila & Bonetti, and First Monday?

Answer: It’ll be the first show with his name on it that will have a non-white in a lead role.

LL Cool JLL Cool J should perhaps consider himself especially lucky to have landed the part, since no other starring character before him has been Black, Hispanic, Arabic, or Asian, at least not if Donald P. Bellisarius had anything to say about it.

Which may ultimately be the whole point of the matter.

In 2007, CBS convinced Mr. Bellisarius to step back from the day-to-day production of the current show, NCIS. Apparently, the show’s star, Mark HarmonMark Harmon, was fed up with the micro-managing style of Mr. Bellisarius (an oft repeated example of this is how the executive producer would fax script-changes to the set at the very last minute and the cast would have to memorize the new material even as the techs had the stage all set for that very scene – if true, a stressful situation, to say the least).

While Bellisarius productions still has its interests in the show –and its spin-off, NCIS, Los Angeles—the man himself is hands-off in all things immediate.

Even so, some things will not change: the leads –played by Chris O’Donnell as well as Mr. J (born James Todd Smith)—will be ex-military, as has been the lead characters for six of his last eight shows (and one or the other of the men –probably O-Donnell’s character—will have an August, 8th, birth date, a Bellisarius signature … it’s his own birth date, you see).

The most obvious difference will likely be, if the past two seasons of NCIS without its creator is any indication, in the show’s attitude toward the occupants of the White House.

In the very first episode of the original series, NCIS, ‘George BushGeorge Bush’ is aboard Air Force One when dire circumstances force Harmon’s character, Leroy Gibbs, to virtually hi-jack the plane … all in the name of protecting the president, of course. Later in the series, wherein the Gibbs character is hospitalized after surviving a bomb attempt on his life, his boss, the director of NCIS, has to call Condoleezza RiceCondoleezza Rice personally on her cell phone in order to get to see him in the ICU.

Such intimate and direct access to one of the least accessible men to ever hold the office of president must surely be a major selling point to the audience the show aims at pleasing the most.

While all of this is very likely canny marketing on the part of Mr. Bellisarius, there is no denying that this pretense of intimacy with the White House is also a facet never shown in earlier productions under the Bellisarius title. Playing up to the angry, right-wing white male voting-block demographic, men who steam over the country America has become while they sit in their Naugahyde loungers in front of their 48-inch TV screens after a hard day’s work, this has never been a bad thing for the broadcast networks, until now.

Having a Black man in the Oval Office, especially right after the Last Great White Hope crashed and burned so thoroughly, means the networks will have to treat Mr. Obama with a sense of care that goes well beyond the traditional ‘respect for the office of president’ approach that had been the usual rule-of-thumb for TV dramas.

Had Mr. Bellisarius remained in his position of day-to-day control, it would have been interesting to see how the NCIS agents in the original show and the new edition would have interacted with the new administration – or if they even acknowledged it at all.

Of course, that is no longer a consideration; now other heads a CBS will determine what view of the presidency will be permitted to be shown.

Now, with a minority in the Toughest Job in the World, a ‘rainbow coalition’ of good guys is more important to present to television audiences than ever before.

Even though it might be argued that Cote de Pablo, who plays Zeva David on the original series, is a minority, both as the actress (Chilean-American) and as the character of an Israeli assigned to NCIS as a Special Agent, each of these arguments carries considerable questions.

First, Ms. Pablo is Catholic by upbringing, and it makes one wonder why –in a country that has numerically more Jewish-ancestried people in its population than the entire state of Israel itself does, why couldn’t a Jewish-ancestried woman have been chosen to play the part?

Second, if the David character truly is the exceptional super-agent that she is depicted as being (it can be realistically argued, after all, that she is only a step or two below in weapons proficiency, fighting skills, and general sex appeal than that of the Zohan character that Adam SandlerAdam Sandler brought to the big screen), why would the government of Israel let her spend all these years in service to an American policing agency?

The first question can be viewed through the fact that Mr. Bellisarius began his career back in the nearly earliest days of television in the US, back when Westerns were the main staple of the TV schedule each night. But those shows rarely if ever hired native Americans to play the roles of Indians. Aside from Jason Silverheels in the Lone Ranger, ‘Injuns’ were portrayed by people of Italian, Jewish, or Hispanic ancestry (and even when the occasional Hispanic was hired, unless your name was Ricardo Montelban, your weren’t going to get the major speaking part). That kind of mind-set followed Mr. Bellisarius into the later decades of his career, it seems clear.

As to the enigma of why a nation as troubled and beset as Israel would allow an agent of such powers to languish in Maryland, obeying her American handlers, solving American crimes, and dispensing with terrorists threatening American interests instead of fighting the good fight at home, only Mr. Bellisarius and his writing team could answer that one.

Another point to consider about the David character is that she is obviously intended to be seen as an Ashkenazi Jew, not a Sephardic or what is referred to as an oriental Jew; Ashkenazi are the Jews who emigrated from Europe after World War II, who dominate Israeli politics and culture even today, and often it requires a DNA blood test to be sure the person in question is actually Jewish.

Put another way, ‘Zeva David’ has so little minority in her that, if she gets a nose bleed, she’s out of the tribe.

Up to this juncture, the Bellisarius Universe has portrayed an overwhelmingly White, mostly male population, focusing mainly on the autocratic leader with a Navy/Marine trained playground, and who is also a 110% patriot; all others must operate at the periphery, waiting their turn, like all good, little darkies should.

Ironically, it appears that it will be the corporate mind, with its eye firmly on the bottom line that finally puts this ‘White Man’s Burden’ style of storytelling to rest.

Simper fi.