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NCIS

Broken Bird

Season 6, Episode 13, Aired Jan 13, 2009

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8.7

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Secrets from Ducky's past are revealed when he ends up stabbed at the crime scene.

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Cast & Crew

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GUEST STAR
Mark Sheppard

Young Marcin Jerek
GUEST STAR
Torri Higginson

Dr. Jordan Hampton
GUEST STAR
W. Morgan Sheppard

Marcin Jerek

Mark Harmon

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Michael Weatherly

Special Agent Tony DiNozzo
Cote de Pablo

Mossad Agent Ziva David
Pauley Perrette

Forensics Specialist Abby Sciuto
Sean Murray (I)

Special Agent Tim McGee
David McCallum

Chief M.E. Ducky Mallard

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Fan Episode Reviews (16)

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Wait, when did NCIS become a quality show?

7.5

"Good"

By noelveiga, Jun 14, 2011

Dont take the score wrong, here. NCIS is a corny procedural that I just happen to enjoy as a guilty pleasure. It's the kind of amiable cheese I need to explain to friends and family who often wonder why I bother with it at all. Elsewhere I already mentioned that the fun way the characters are built, almost to golden holywood support cast standards, is the main reason why I stick with NCIS. Even so, this show has no business building an episode around two old timer TV actors, much less doing it so well.

McCallum and W. Morgan Sheppard share one scene, and it makes the episode. All the credit for it falls on the actors, as their dialogue is overwritten and on the nose. The two just elevate it. It helps that Ducky has been built as a rambling literate old man, of course, but making the lines they had poignant and honest is a feat. Sure, the episode has highs and lows, it's definitely not perfect, but unlike other procedurals, NCIS has survived an attempt at social commentary and, surprisingly, even managed to end it in a high emotional note. I guess the move from me-too CSI to a successful show in its own right has happened for a reason. I can't say I'm disappointed with that.moreless
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Quintessential hypocrisy and angel complex.

4.0

"Poor"

By ayershov, Jun 12, 2011

Not for the first time I feel disgusted by Ducky's character...He always follows the same pattern: makes a difficult, but necessary choice, agonizes over it, then apparently reluctantly, but deliberately, finds somebody else to blame for what happened. Quintessential hypocrisy and angel complex. Why did he keep quiet for so many years? They tortured and murdered an innocent man. Now chickens came home to roost, and of course the good doctor allowed himself to be persuaded to give up someone else to take the blame. He submitted himself to the judgment of the victim's family (knowing they'd have to forgive him once they found the truth), so now he can go back being an angel and riding the high horse with everyone else.moreless
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Confusing.

6.0

"Fair"

By tanargue, Mar 30, 2011

Sorry but this is not one of my favourite episodes although it has its moments.
I thought that the premise of the woman who stabbed Ducky, recognising him after thirty years when she had been only eight at the time was stretching it a bit.
The idea that it was Ducky who was being tortured psychologically I found confusing. Why? Just for the torturer's sadistic pleasure? It seemed a very strange idea to me.
In fact, Ducky annoyed me intensely in this episode. All that fuss about the starling in the house - I liked the Corgis though!!
Jimmy Palmer and his search for the explanation of why there is no J street in Washington was amusing and indeed we now know why. Capital J was too similar to capital I in the script of the day. So there you are.moreless
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The first half of the episode was amazing, but the second half was just plain confusing!

9.0

"Superb"

By amazing_race, Dec 26, 2010

This was a decent episode of NCIS, but I have definitely seen better. I lvoed the idea of edelving into Dr. Mallard's past, and this was certainly an interesting storyline.

Ducky being attacked at the crime scene was just a creative and great scene, but it was also a sad one, and fortunately, it wasn't a serious attack.

I thought the storyline was interesting at several points, but as the episode unfolded, it became increasingly confusing and more and more frustrating to understand. I know I was definitely confused at various points.

Overall, it isn't an exceptional episode, but I would still recommend it neveratheless. It's a great show, and even one of its weaker episodes can be seen as great. Keep it up, NCIS!moreless
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A must watch for any Ducky or David McCallum Fan. Outstanding!!!!!

10

"Perfect"

By Ducky_One, Dec 26, 2010

"Broken Bird" is one of those episodes that really makes you see what the charactrers are made of. From the start to finish you feel a certain amount of pain for Ducky. It is only thru the unflagging support of his friends, especailly Gibbs, that the good doctor is proven innocent. I have to admit when I first heard what the story line delt with I was hesitant to watch. Ducky is my favorite character on the show and to see the type of charges brought against him was hard to comprehend. After watching in though, I now have a better understanding of his character and a much more sympathtic outlook. By the way I cried for a solid two hour after the episode went off. David McCallum proved what a WONDERFUL actor he really is with the wide range of emotion he displays in this episode. OUTSTANDINGmoreless
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (5)
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- TRIVIA: When Gibbs says "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," Ziva recognizes it as a quote from Endmund Burke. Previously, in "Dead Man Walking," Ziva says that this is her favorite quote.
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- TRIVIA: We learn in this episode that Jimmy was named after famed pitcher Jim Palmer. He prefers to be called Jimmy because he has no interest in baseball.
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- GOOF: The murder knife, when removed from the sailor, has very little blood on the blade. When seen lying at the crime scene, it has more blood on it, and when Mosuma Daoub picks it up to stab Ducky, the entire surface is covered with blood.
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- TRIVIA: Gibbs uses the quote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." and Ziva recognized it as Edmund Burke. Interestingly, there is no known records of Burke actually using these words, the quote may be based on a paraphrase of some of Burke's ideas, but he is not known to have ever declared them in such a manner in any of his writings. It may have been adapted from these lines of Burke's in his Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents (1770): "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
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- GOOF: When Ducky is listing the many different historical rulers of Afghanistan, he omits the Macedonian King Alexander the Great and his successors in the region, the Seleucid Dynasty, who controlled the country from the 320s BCE to 10 CE. For someone with a classical education, this seems a very strange omission.
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QUOTES (5)
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- Ducky: If I kept him alive, he would have continued to suffer. Dying slowly, in excrutiating pain, at your hands. Jerek: So you became the 'Bringer of Death'. Ducky: What was the point in it all?! Jerek: Oh, how can you still not see?! Ducky: What did you want from him?! Jerek: Nothing. I wanted nothing from him. Ducky: (suddenly understanding that he himself was the one being tortured) Javid was not your target. He was your weapon!
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- Palmer: (when Abby arrives at the hospital to see Ducky) You are very, ah... calm. Abby: I am. If I keep going to crazy town every time one of you gets hurt, I'm gonna have to have my mail forwarded.
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- McGee: (seeing a large package on his desk) Oh, goody, they're here! Tony: Goody? Who says goody?! Ziva: What is it? McGee: (pulling out an old computer) This is my Mac SE. Got it for my eleventh birthday. (lovingly) She's my first! Tony: This is going to get really strange, isn't it? Ziva: Going to?
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- Abby: Ducky! Ducky: Abby? Ooh, how kind of you to visit. Abby: Oh, they gave you morphine. Ducky: Well, just a drop. Gibbs: Duck, anything you remember about the attack? Ducky: Oh, my, my glasses? (Gibbs puts them on Ducky) Oh, sweetie, you held onto them while I went under the knife! It's ironic that the solution to one knife should be... Mr Palmer, would, would you finish that thought for me? Palmer: Sure, doctor. Ducky: Oh, and you need to send for a substitute M.E.- aah, Jordan...? Jimmy Palmer: Dr. Hampton? Ducky: Yeah, on my desk you'll find her number, while I myself lay here getting much numb-er. (Ducky laughs) Nurse, more anesthetic. And don't spare the horses!
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- Palmer: The reason there is no J street--- because it looked too much like an I at those times. So they omitted it because they didn't want to create confusion. Ducky: Thank you, Palmer. (Palmer leaves, Ducky breaks down in Dr. Hampton's arms who cuddles him.)
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NOTES (4)
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- Rocky Carroll is credited but doesn't appear.
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- Featured Music:
  "Promises" by Nitzer Ebb (2nd lab scene with Abby and McGee)
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- The younger Marcin Jerek seen in the old films was played by Mark Sheppard, who is W. Morgan Sheppard's son.
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- Original International Airdates: Denmark: February 8, 2009 on TV3 Australia: March 3, 2009 on Channel 10 Sweden: May 12, 2009 on TV3 Germany: May 24, 2009 on SAT 1 Norway: July 7, 2009 on TV3 Spain: July 30, 2009 on La Sexta The Netherlands: September 1, 2009 on SBS6 Slovakia: February 18, 2010 on Markiza Finland: April 13, 2010 on Nelonen Czech Republic: August 16, 2010 on TV Nova
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ALLUSIONS (2)
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- Tony: The alternative is that Ducky was Dr. Mengele. Dr. Mengele (1911-1979) was with allegiance with Nazi Germany in WWII as a German SS officer and a physician at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was infamously known as one of the SS physicians who overlooked the arrival of prisoners, deciding which ones would be killed, or a forced laborer. He would commit acts of human experimentation on camp inmates, and between them Mengele was known as the "Angel of Death."
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- Tony: Mr. Mom's story checks out. Seeing how Tony is a movie buff, he could be referencing the movie Mr. Mom from 1983, starring Michael Keaton. "Mr. Mom", has become a well known nickname used for men who are stay at home parents, derived from the movie, though the people who use it may not realize that it's a film reference.
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