In a story that is eerily similar to the evening news, tonight’s NCIS focuses on the hacking of high-ranking government officials and how much someone is willing to pay to control their privacy.
With changes to the law that will allow ISPs to gather personal information to sell to the highest bidder in play, the question of how much someone is willing to pay to keep his or her information private is particularly relevant this week.
When a Vice Admiral’s computer is infected with spyware, he turns to McGee (Sean Murray) for a back-channel solution. A friend of Tim’s father, the Admiral (returning guest star, Bruce Boxleitner) prevails upon McGee to fix the problem and extract him from the ransomware.
With a countdown of 35 hours, Tim tries to explain that paying the ransom would be more effective than his trying to crack the code in less than 2 days.
Enter Director Vance (Rocky Carroll), who deems the case an act of cyberterrorism and Gibbs, whose first initial “L” does not stand for “Luddite,” despite its applicability. Notwithstanding the Admiral’s stack of non-digitized confidential paperwork, there is information in his account that he wants to retain and keep private.
As the virus spreads to NCIS, the team is in a quandary as to how to exist without their mobile phones or computers, while Gibbs (Mark Harmon) happily navigates his electronics needs with his flip phone. Guess he will never have to decide which is more important…privacy or convenience.
Not the case for Quinn (Jennifer Esposito), who may wish that she had no phone at all when her mother, Marie (guest star, the always-fabulous Mercedes Ruehl). texts her with a “911” request.
Meanwhile Ducky (David McCallum) will be exploring the capabilities of refrigeration (and a possible link to Marie) when the team turns up a body that is frozen to a chilly 62-degrees-below-zero. A cold case, indeed.
NCIS also stars Pauley Perrette, Wilmer Valderrama, Brian Dietzen, Emily Wickersham and Duane Henry. Guest stars on tonight’s episode, “A Bowl of Cherries,” include Andrew Bridges, Erica Luttrell, Kyle Marasciulo, Philip Smithey, Raychel Diane Weiner, Craig Robert Young and Gabriel Baca.
“A Bowl of Cherries” was written by Brendan Fehily and directed by Edward Ornelas.
And if you are not a fan of having your personal information sold to the highest bidder, be sure to check out the Congressional resolution that begins, “This joint resolution nullifies the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission entitled ‘Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services’” to find out how your rights will be affected.
NCIS airs tonight (March 4) at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS in the U.S. and on Global in Canada.
