Fall TV- NCIS Season Opener!

Just what secrets will be revealed in this seasons NCIS?

Mark Harmon and crew are back with a new season of the hit show, and just what's going to happen next is anyone's guess. With the season opening up with a kick in the emotional gut for the Director, played by Lauren Holly, it's made very clear that this season will pack a lot more punches into the show, not that the previous seasons have lacked any of that. When I first started watching NCIS I expected to be disappointed. Not many shows have the ability to get the mix of military background right, the language, formality, and bonding that takes place, without losing the audience by drowning them in it. But this show has been able to manage that. Unlike the UNIT which leaves me gnashing my teeth as the wives there drive me nuts. Sorry but I doubt that many of the wives shown in the UNIT would last a week married to a real member of the armed forces. They just don't show the backbone required for a military wife.

NCIS has avoided that issue, by keeping the members of the team single. A smart move on the part of the writers. Not just because it leaves the team members open for romantic tension, but it means that the problems involved with spouses are carefully avoided.

The episode is listed as being the final show down between the NCIS team and an elusive arms dealer, a show down that will finish in an explosive show down, but that simple statement down plays the tension that ripples through the season opener.

As the Director attempts to delete the results of the search she's had Abby working on, the plot quickly begins to thicken. Except Abby, the sex kitten, goth girl who runs the lab, isn't dumb and stumbles over the attempt to hide the results. Results the watcher doesn't get the chance to read over before the shot changes again. A match that later turns out to be her father - a man who is supposed to be dead - yet fresh fingerprints with a ten point match have appeared and that's what Abby had been running through the computer at the Director's request.

Then we're jumped straight into an operation Tony has been involved in on the orders of the Director, which, apparently, the rest of the team were unaware of.

Something the Director knows better than to try and do.

Especially when it results in Tony's car blowing up right in front of their eyes even as they zoom in on him using CC tv... An explosion that seems to mark the end for Tony when the team discover the charred remains of a body in the burned out hulk that was once Tony's car and the stunned team force themselves to go through the painful duty of recording every inch of the crime scene.

So is it fair to say that this season will have a lot more bang for the buck? Oh, Hell yeah. The story lines promise to remain fast paced, with the quick, often brutal dialogue between the team members. If the season opens up with a show that threatens to keep you on the edge of the seat through out the episode, then just what do they have in mind for the rest of the season?

I'm looking forward to finding out.

And is Tony alive?

What's the story behind the Director's father?

Who is out to get the team and the Director?

I wouldn't want to spoil it for you...

All right, Tony is still live. Come on, there'd be a riot amongst the fans if they killed off that man! As for the rest, you'll just have to the follow the series to find out.