NCIS Episode 7.8 "Power Down"

NCIS EPISODE 7.8
"Power Down"

This Review may contain SPOILERS.

This episode was another very good one. It is an episode that reminds me why I watch the show. It didn't have a lot of action, in fact there was only a little bit at the beginning of the episode. Without giving too much of the plot away the basic gist of the story was that the power in the majority of the DC area was knocked out (there was a pretty cool scene of DC lights shutting down) due to the events of their case of course. The NCIS team had to solve their case without electric power. OK so they cheated a little bit and gave them a little backup power for necessities like the body freezers in autopsy and minimal power in the MTAC room, but for the most part they had to do things old school, actually a little more than old school since the phones were also out. They didn't like it and each character asked "How did people do [blank according to their specific job function] before [blank specific technology for their job]".


They even found an old mimeograph machine in storage that Gibbs had to give them a non-verbal demonstration on to show how to use it. That was truly just a site gag and a jab at Gibbs' age compared to the young ages of his team. They even found the time to make a reference to Doctor Who. McGee mentioned that the storage shed they were searching was like the TARDIS, Dinozzo asks him what he means. McGee says it's the time ship that Doctor Who travels in. Puzzled Dinozzo then asks "Dr. Who? Who watches Doctor Who?"


In recent years I have often wondered what people would do if modern technology was out of commission for an extended period of time. This episode shows that excellently. Most of us modern technologically dependents would be lost. I do fear that there will come a time when technology fails us and many things will be lost.


All in all a very good episode. 4.5/5

The NCIS: Los Angeles episode that followed it was also pretty good, not quite as good in my book as this NCIS episode, but for NCIS: LA it was one of the better ones.


NOTE: This review was updated to reflect the Doctor Who references that I had forgotten about. I also added the Spoilers warning in case people consider the Doctor Who references, or other parts of this review as spoilers. I may have even corrected some grammar and spelling errors, or not.