What happens when an American naval officer dies on Australian soil? You bring in the Australian Federal Police and NCIS, of course! NCIS: Sydney has finally debuted its premiere episode, Gone Fission, in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The show will drop in the United States in a couple of days.
NCIS: Sydney is the first international version of the NCIS franchise. The way the show is being headed is quite interesting due to the clash of cultures between Australia and America. The fascinating part is that Americans did not play the American characters. Olivia Swann, who plays the female lead, Michelle Mackey, is British, though the character is American and Sean Sagar, who plays Mackey’s NCIS colleague DeShawn Jackson isn’t American either. This may have been done on purpose due to the SAG-AFTA and WGA strikes. There’s also an Australian actor playing an American.
Gone Fission introduces the audience to Jim “JD” Dempsey, an AFP officer who is a little full of himself, but he understands his job. We also meet his contemporary NCIS Special Agent, Michelle Mackey, who has much in common with JD. The team of NCIS and AFP personnel include AFP Forensic Scientist Bluebird “Blue” Gleeson, Forensic Pathologist Roy Penrose, NCIS Special Agent (SA) DeShawn Jackson and AFP Liasion Officer Evie Cooper.
A Small Cast For NCIS: Sydney
The pairings of characters we get are:
- JD and Mackey
- Roy and Blue
- Evie and DeShawn
The dynamics work well, and what was surprising is that NCIS: Sydney uses the original NCIS theme and the black-and-white filter transition to show what’s coming up. If you’ve seen an episode of any other NCIS show, all the series have the same format.
Also, it’s a little jarring to have a much smaller cast than the other shows have, especially the original show which a
For our American and Canadian readers, NCIS: Sydney starts on the 14 November.
Gone Fission was a fun episode to watch, though it might need another viewing as this is the first full episode of an NCIS series we’ve ever watched.
