NCIS: Los Angeles
CBS | Release Date: September 22, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
9
Negative:
2

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: It all adds up to an hour of decent entertainment, and there's room for enough character development to give NCIS: Los Angeles a personality of its own. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyDarren FranichOct 25, 2010
Season 2 Review: It's business as usual--sun-drenched cinematography, mysteries solved by security cameras, and characters so paper-thin that one angry glare from Mark Harmon's blue eyes would tear them in half. [22/29 Oct 2010, p.105]
58
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: It's a Pre-Cambrian specimen that crept out of the primordial ooze of TV past, with a rhythm so profoundly familiar that if you happened to fall asleep during the first few minutes and woke up for the last, you'd be able to mentally reconstruct the entire program from scratch. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: What NCIS: Los Angeles does well is what all CBS procedurals do well--bring mostly believable, semi-pulse-pounding justice to bad guys by the end of the hour with some action, a dose of humor and the weekly, methodical unpeeling of each character's private onion skin. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: It's slightly less entertaining than the moderately entertaining original, with a far-fetched connection that these undercover wonders somehow have something to do with the Navy, which is the "N" in NCIS, and who really cares what the "CIS" is? Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: I have nothing against procedurals per se, but all this rather soulless copy has going for it is the jaunty performance of LL Cool J and a fairly efficient tick-tock plot. Depending upon your mood or preference, that may be enough. Read full review
40
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: It's a drab third-generation clone (a spinoff of the original NCIS, which in turn was a spinoff of JAG) of a show from the shallow end of the TV gene pool. Read full review
40
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: Most of the humor feels like a show that’s trying too hard, except when we’re watching the great-yet-tiny character actress Linda Hunt as the boss of NCIS’s Los Angeles field office. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith
Season 1 Review: Ms. Hunt gets some humorous lines, and the banter between partners Callen and Hanna can make them seem like a new-age Starsky and Hutch. Read full review
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