In “NCIS: Tony & Ziva,” premiering Thursday on Paramount+, two fashionable characters from the CBS navy procedural “NCIS,” have been introduced again after a number of years and given a sequence of their very own. Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, as particular brokers Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo and Ziva David, so occupied the romantic fantasies of viewers that their names have been portmanteaued into “Tiva.” (You will discover hundreds of cases of Tiva-themed fan fiction on-line.) As to the will-they, received’t-they of the connection, they lastly did, earlier than they didn’t, and now they’ve a 12-year-old daughter, Tali (Isla Gie), whom they’re amicably co-parenting.
I’ve seemed in on the franchise from time to time, professionally, as new iterations have prolonged the size and breadth of the model, which technically reaches again into “JAG,” from which it was spun off. However I’m not even going to aim to faux to have any actual experience within the adventures of a giant rotating forged over 22 seasons. (It’s been renewed for a twenty third.) However I respect the establishment — the unique of which has been and could also be now America’s most watched sequence — and its longevity, as I’ll salute your lengthy marriage.
On the identical time, as soon as the essential premise of the present — it’s an elite navy police procedural — it’s not onerous to determine the place you’re, wherever you drop in. The characters could also be heroic or eccentric, however they’re heroic or eccentric inside a acknowledged mildew, with sufficient particular person character to make them lovable over a future, and you may choose up on the interpersonal vibes fairly rapidly.
Not like earlier “NCIS” sequence, all primarily based on broadcast tv, “Tony & Ziva” is platformed on Paramount+, which implies that characters utter a foul phrase from time to time — it doesn’t get a lot edgier than that, and regardless of the sexual warmth it’s hardly racy — and that there’s a price range which permits for overseas areas and massive motion scenes. And the place the sooner reveals, however cleaning soap operatic lengthy arcs, are essentially episodic, “Tony & Ziva” is a serial story, stretched over 10 episodes. Whether or not it’s stretched to breaking, we’ll have to attend and see; solely 4 episodes out of 10 have been provided for evaluate.
The crime-fighting combo of a roguish man and a no-nonsense gal is acquainted from “Moonlighting” and “Fortress.” Even the truth that the title joins Tony and Ziva with an ampersand and never an “and” signifies a sure lightness of tone, and when Tony, talking of his firm, says, “We attempt to stroll that superb line between techno thriller and office comedy,” he’s, after all, describing the very sequence he’s in. A pressure of comedy is frequent to team-based procedurals, and it’s definitely a part of what’s stored “NCIS” going robust all these years.
Provided that the American model hasn’t been as poisonous, internationally and domestically, because the Vietnam period, presumably, and that “NCIS” sequence present all over the world, it’s simply as effectively that the presumed villains are (apparently) not the anti-American, freedom-hating terrorists one usually finds in this stuff, however Bond-type stateless actors merely searching for energy and cash.
Moreover, the sequence — whose earlier iterations have been primarily based in Washington, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaii, Sydney and, in final 12 months’s prequel, “NCIS: Origins,” unique Oceanside, Calif. — is ready in Paris, the place, having gone civilian, Ziva has opened a flowery language faculty and Tony runs a high-end safety service. (Amongst his shoppers: Interpol. You possibly can’t get extra European than that.) Together with easy accessibility to croissants and café au lait, our heroes benefit from not having to wax patriotic a couple of nation by which they now not stay. It feels very 2025.
The sequence’ MacGuffin is a magical thumb drive that, when plugged into a pc system, can seemingly do something in any respect; possessing it, subsequently, is a matter for each the nice guys and the dangerous, into whose respective arms it goes out and in. When villains use it to border Tony for extorting cash from a hospital and threaten Tali’s life, Tony and Ziva are dragged again into a lifetime of operating, taking pictures, reckless driving and fisticuffs. “Two phrases,” says Tony, observing Ziva take aside a thug endangering her daughter. “Jewish mom.”
Most vital, it places the pair on the run collectively — the opening episodes discover them (ostensibly and/or really) in France, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary — and into fixed shut quarters, the place previous tender emotions simmer and the query of sharing a mattress arises, as in “The 39 Steps,” the best of all innocent-and-on-the-run romances.
Ziva, whose pre-NCIS employment was as an murderer for the Israeli secret service — maybe not the most effective job for a TV heroine to have on her resume these days, however it’s not a problem right here — has held on to an arsenal and plural secure homes. (“Have I ever informed you the way deeply I admire your paranoia?” Tony tells her.) They usually’ve each stored their previous NCIS badges, which they’ll flash to dazzle safety guards and the like.
Alongside the best way they choose up Boris (Maximilian Osinski), a non-aligned Russian hacker who made the MacGuffin within the first place, and his chirpy fiancee Fruzsi (Anne-Marie Waldeck), who present each comedy and the picture of a wholesome, all-in romantic relationship to distinction with that of our hesitating heroes. Filling out the ranks are Tali’s succesful nanny, Sophie (Lara Rossi), and Tony’s resident tech whiz, Claudette (Amita Suman), since you apparently can’t plot a thriller anymore with out computer systems on the middle of issues. By advantage of being Tony’s buddy and Tali’s godfather, Interpol exec Henry (James D’Arcy) is the type of character you count on to develop into dangerous, although it’s up within the air. I’ll say no extra about Martine (Nassima Benchicou), apart from that Benchicou is superb at being very dangerous.
Created by John McNamara (“The Magicians”), not beforehand a part of the “NCIS” world, “Tony & Ziva” could be fairly absurd, relying closely on suspensions of disbelief, or a viewer simply not considering too onerous. This doesn’t set it other than an amazing many such screenplays, and the sequence doesn’t shrink back from style tropes — the automotive chase by means of a market, a combat with a seemingly unbeatable huge bald bruiser. Certainly, it embraces them.
However what makes the present value watching are Weatherly and De Pablo, two extraordinarily engaging middle-aged individuals with real chemistry; he’s superheroically unflappable with out ever seeming something however a daily Joe. She’s unhappy and critical and to not be messed with. They’ve been round; they’ve worn edges, and once they intersect, it generates one thing authentically candy, as actual as the remainder of the sequence is unbelievable. There’s a purpose for all that fan fiction.
