Last year, Season 13 of NCIS ended with Tony DiNozzo exiting stage right to look after his and Ziva’s daughter, with the life of a single dad not fitting with his NCIS lifestyle. Back when Ziva’s character exited, the producers spent a whack of time over a bunch of episodes playing “agent, agent, who wants to try out as an agent?”. Lots of old characters rotated in and out for an episode, and eventually they added Ellie Bishop. Not all the fans out there love Bishop, I don’t mind her, but I was hoping they wouldn’t do another round of rotating characters. I thought the producers said that one or two of the characters from the last couple of Eps of Season 13 would become recurring characters if not full season regulars, so imagine my surprise with both of the two other agents gone, and not a lot of explanation other than they returned to their agencies.

Season 14 kicked off with a lot of backstory for a Latino agent who has been undercover in various operations for eight years, and recently had his cover blown in Argentina. He’s been off the grid for awhile, NCIS wasn’t even sure if he was alive or dead. But he was alive, still working, and when his cover was blown, the family he was after decided to take out his family back in the U.S. too. Lots of sub-plots around revenge, heart-break, infiltrations, blah blah blah.

But the real story is that the former undercover agent, Nick Torres, is now a new agent with the team. Played by Wilmer Valderrama, it’s nice to see last year’s Minority Report secondary actors getting work. I confess both last year and this year that I recognized him, but couldn’t place from where. Double-checking his bio writing this, I was shocked to realize it’s Fez from That 70s Show. I never would have come up with that.

NCIS likes to add a twist though, and they did it this time too. They added TWO agents, not just one. Jennifer Esposito plays Alexandra Quinn, a NCIS trainer that Gibbs pulls out of the academy to join the team. I’m hoping she’s not on the team just to give them a red shirt to eliminate in the future. I loved Esposito as Jackie on Blue Bloods, even if she didn’t have enough to do in the series. I even liked her on Taxi Brooklyn for the short time it was on. Happy to see her getting some work, and she has great presence. Not sure the dynamic with Gibbs since she’s not the spring chickens like the other three.

Finally, while the overall plot for the Ep was so-so, there is a great cameo by good old Bud Roberts. Now a Captain, and still at JAG, he starts to tell a story about Mac and Harm and what they’re up to, and then he gets interrupted and there’s no story. Oh, so close. Cute little scene. But baby faced Bud? He looks OLD now 🙂