A helicopter disrupts a children's soccer game to pick up the head of the local NCIS to whisk her back to: A) an armed standoff where her expertise is needed to defuse the situation, B) interrogate a dying suspect who will only speak to her and might not be alive if she drives, C) frantically search for evidence before the rising tide washes it away, D) have what could have been a casual cellphone chat with a guy about what everyone is convinced is an unfortunate accident. If you said (D) have I got a show for you. We're eight or nine episodes in and this show just gets more baffling. The thought process behind the casting of the lead is difficult to fathom. If, as other reviewers suggest, they wanted a strong female lead character, then why cast a tired 'mom' fresh from Lifetime movies who reads her lines and has no range of emotion? Why not simply cast a strong female lead. There are plenty of talented actresses who have already convincingly played strong female lead characters in an Hawaiian setting. Grace Park or Lucy Liu or Michelle Borth or Julie Benz or pretty much any of the agents who temporarily joined the Hawaii Five O team over the years. There is no chemistry between any of the characters. They genuinely come across as random enlistees thrown together to serve out their stints. Which could be interesting, except we're supposed to believe they are this tight knit team. Portraying two cast members as having mutual attraction doesn't work when neither conveys any palpable interest in the other, physical or otherwise. Leaning into the gay Navy stereotype? Really? How 1940s. Speaking of stereotypes, the only not modeling-as-my-day-job actor is the nerdy IT tech? Really? How 1980s. One last stereotype: they have weight classes in combative sports because the larger person has an advantage over the smaller one. One connected punch from a middleweight boxer and the bantamweight is down for the count. It isn't sexism that gives the larger combatant the advantage, it's power. It's physics. So when a trained two hundred pound dude squares off against a similarly trained one hundred pound woman, she isn't going to prevail in a protracted fight. She needs an equalizer in the form of getting the drop on him, a weapon, unique skills, unorthodox styles, wiles, 'cheating', something. Trading blows just takes the viewer out of the fight. If you want a female lead who can regularly prevail over men in a fair fight cast someone credible like Gina Carano. Distracting as the stereotypes are at times, they are little more than minor 'huh?' moments. The real problems are the plots. The stories jump around, with actors seemingly teleporting from scene to scene with no continuity or logical progression. No one bothers to inform us, the audience, where they are going and why. They just appear in a set piece, do some seemingly random stuff, accomplish something (though often what is unclear) or not, and have Scotty beam them into the next scene. The net result is an unsatisfying series of beats that never add up to anything. Three stars for Hawaii and the NCIS brand goodwill. Take away the Hawaiian setting and the NCIS name and this show never gets greenlit. And that's the problem. Three stars.

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