Why Is NCIS So Popular?

I'm talking about CBS hit show, not the Naval Criminal Investigative Service itself. What? It's Friday. I can write about pop culture if I want to. And I have a serious point to make, I promise.

I watch a lot of NCIS. It's syndicated on USA before House re-runs (and I watch a LOT of House). It's easy on the brain. And I'm pretty much in favor of anything that keeps Mark Harmon working. And a lot of Americans watch with me: on a good night, the new episodes can get 19 million viewers.

But while I think NCIS is a pleasant diversion, I don't think it's a particularly good show. And it exemplifies some of the more annoying things about how I think federal employees are depicted on television.

First, it's a procedural based in a law-enforcement agency. Almost all federal employees or federal employee characters on television work for agencies like the FBI, or the Department of Homeland Security, even when they're part of a larger constellation of characters on a show like The Wire. That's not necessarily a bad thing. People like to see cops solve crimes--it's why the Law & Order franchise has such enormous staying power. And it means that the vast majority of federal employees on television look like heroes, the occasional rogue agent aside. But it's an extremely limited view of the wide range of work that federal employees perform. And by focusing on law enforcement, the federal government looks punitive, rather than service-oriented.

And NCIS, like JAG (which it's a spin-off from) is fairly ensconced in the Naval community. The show's characters only interact with civilians who are related or otherwise directly connected to the members of the military who are the victims or criminals in the cases they tackle. It's a hermetic look at the federal world. That's also not to say that the IRS, which touches the life of every adult American, would make a fascinating show (though it's the subject of David Foster Wallace's new novel). USA's In Plain Sight, about U.S. Marshals, does a better job of placing its characters in broader communities, and showing how government can make people's lives better and safer.

But for my money, the best show about federal employees on the air right now is Fox's Bones. Yes, it's a procedural, and it's got an FBI agent. But it's set in a federal scientific lab, among a group of employees with a wide range of skills. Solving murders is what the show focuses on, but it's not the only thing the characters do. They interact with a broad array of members of the public. And the show makes frequent references to coordinating with other agencies. The show isn't a documentary, of course--I don't think a lot of federal labs include vaults set up by serial killers, and David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, who play the two main characters "deviate from the norm" in terms of physical appearance, as Deschanel's character would say. But despite those necessary elements of fantasy, the show has a feeling of interconnectivity, and shows the characters doing a whole bunch of things other than brandishing guns and kicking in doors. With NCIS as the counter-example, that feels like progress.