Detour (NCIS)
Ducky and Palmer are kidnapped while transporting a body.
The 226th episode of NCIS, "Detour," is the sixteenth installment of season ten. It aired on CBS on February 26, 2013, drawing 20.69 million viewers. Steven D. Binder wrote the episode, with Mario Van Peebles directing.
Quick Facts
- Series
- NCIS
- Season
- 10
- Episode
- 16
- Director
- Mario Van Peebles
- Writer
- Steven D. Binder
- Air date
- 26 February 2013
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Ducky and Palmer are called to investigate a Navy Lieutenant's suicide but are kidnapped on the way back to NCIS headquarters. Their captors force them to perform an autopsy on the corpse to find an item the lieutenant carried. The team learns the dead lieutenant was a Cuban spy who assumed the identity after the real lieutenant died and stole classified files. Ducky and Palmer escape by outwitting their captors, and the team rescues them, apprehending the lead handler and recovering the files.
Production
The episode was written by Steven D. Binder and directed by Mario Van Peebles. Executive producer Gary Glasberg asked Binder to consider what happens when Ducky and Palmer leave a crime scene with a body and the details of their van journey. Binder noted the drive back to NCIS base had never been shown before, but this episode depicts it, though atypically. The escape using only their expertise and a dead body was the episode's challenge. The forest scenes were shot on a set built by the production design team, which Binder said looked more realistic than the actual forest used for establishing shots.
Reception
The episode drew 20.69 million live viewers on February 26, 2013, with a 3.4/10 share among adults 18–49. It won the night for NCIS and CBS in total viewers, while NCIS: Los Angeles had 17.02 million. Compared to the previous episode "Hereafter", viewership and adult ratings declined. Douglas Wolfe of TV Fanatic rated it 4.0/5, calling it a welcome change and noting Jimmy Palmer's refusal to abandon Ducky as the most compelling scene.
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