USA Today.com
9/11/03

Tuesday: 'NCIS' vs. 'One Tree Hill,' comedies
Best dramatic bet: Navy NCIS

If by "best bet" you mean "best bet for success," then this astutely commercial combination of JAG and CSI surely qualifies. If you're looking for quality, however, let's just say NCIS is less awful than Tuesday's other new drama.

Navy launch: David McCallum, left, and Mark Harmon investigate the death of Gerald Downey.

On the plus side, the show features the always reliable Mark Harmon and the legendary David McCallum (Illya Kuryakin, one of the coolest men ever to walk across a TV set) as members of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. (And yes, that means the "Navy" in the title is both silly and redundant). Harmon leads the investigators, while McCallum plays the genre's requisite medical examiner.

And the negative side? That would be the clumsy dramatics and a plethora of sexual innuendos that make either the characters or the writers look like sex-crazed delinquents. Boys, and I do mean boys, grow up.