How many remembered to watch NCIS: New Orleans on Tuesday?????? Scott Bakula helms NCIS: New Orleans Bakula says his character and the series setting differentiate New Orleans, debuting Sept. 23 on Global, from other NCIS show Scott Bakula as special agent Dwayne Pride and CCH Pounder as Dr. Loretta Wade in NCIS: New Orleans, which aired Tuesday. Published on Sep 22 2014 Tony Wong STAFF REPORTER Scott Bakula is feeling the weight of big expectations. The NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles franchises are a cash cow for CBS. NCIS finished the 2012-2013 season as most watched series. Now CBS is spinning off a third, this time set in New Orleans, and Bakula, as the star, knows that he’s been given the keys to a well-tuned Ferrari. But how do you make your own imprint on an already winning formula? “That’s a real challenge. The writers are on the same page about making it unique. But we all understand you can’t stray too far from the bones of the franchise,” Bakula told the Star. “You don’t want to alienate viewers. That’s not the NCIS they’re expect The new series debuted Tuesday at 9 p.m. on Global and CBS. Despite all the critical attention focused on serialized dramas such as True Detective, formulaic police procedurals such as NCIS rule TV airwaves. There is the larger audience who wants to see a beginning, middle and an end. They want to see the crime solved in an hour including commercials, not 10 winding episodes later. NCIS is the king of the procedural, a cross between a standard police series and military drama. The acronym stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the show follows special agents who do law enforcement for the U.S. navy. The trick in getting as wide an audience as possible is not to reinvent the wheel; rather to polish it a little. NCIS was in turn a spinoff from JAG, another military drama that had a legal rather than a police procedural element. So Bakula’s NCIS: New Orleans, where he plays special agent Dwayne Cassius Pride is expected to hit the ground running. The characters were introduced in Season 11 of NCIS. In its bid to differentiate itself from the original show, the new NCIS has one trump card: few cities are as distinct as New Orleans. “It’s already different just being in New Orleans,” says Bakula. “My character is completely different from previous characters. My guy is completely out there. It’s about what he’s going to do, how he’s going to do it. I’m going to get wet. He breaks the rules. And he’s in love with the town and in love with the people who live there. It’s not just a job for him. So it’s a big difference already. ” Bakula is perhaps best known for starring in science fiction TV series, playing Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise (the prequel to the original series) and Doctor Sam Beckett, a scientist who inhabits other people’s bodies in Quantum Leap, for which he was nominated for four Emmy Awards. New Orleans, still hard hit by a recession and the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina, welcomed the crew with incredible enthusiasm, says Bakula. “Wherever we went it was pandemonium. The city really opened its doors. They were asking, ‘How can we help you?’ It was really fun, really challenging.” Sometimes too challenging. While shooting in crowded areas such as the historic French Quarter it was a challenge to keep “drunk people with cameras” out of the shots, said Bakula. “The city doesn’t shut down. There’s a resiliency about that world that I didn’t understand before. There is a history about that place, what the people endured to live there,” says Bakula. “The centre of the city is 15 feet below sea level. But they won’t give it up. It wasn’t intended to be what it became. They’re a dog with a bone. They love that town. And they’re so rich in food and music and culture. We’re so excited to explore all that. And to have the world see that.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 19:17:14 +0000
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