I have yet to find a series on USA Network worth watching. I've flirted with Burn Notice, Blue Collar, and that one with the female US marshal whose title escapes me, that's how memorable it was. None of them have made an impact on me other than living up to USA's slogan "Characters Welcome." They're all characters, all right, so quirky and annoying that I can't watch any of their shows. Note to the USA network heads: quirky is NOT a character trait. It's a gimmick, and when every one of your leads on every one of you shows is quirky, it's really, Really, REALLY annoying.
But I'm always in the market for a new show to watch, especially in these hot, barren days in the summer television desert. So I decided to give Covert Affairs, USA's new spy/thriller series. After all, it was touting itself in promos as being from "the producer of the Bourne trilogy." So it has to be good, right?
Well, it turns out that producer is Doug Liman, who also directed the first Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity (and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, too), thus jump-starting the best spy movie franchise in recent history (um...are their any others). But his influence--or any Bourne-like feeling--is sadly missing from Covert Affairs. The pilot was a big ugly mess with a new CIA agent (played by the horribly miscast Piper Perabo) getting bumped out of training into the big show--an actual assignment. Perabo's character has all the earnestness of a high school senior on an Ivy League college placement interview. It doesn't help that Perabo's acting is on the high school play level, either. I found her annoying and totally unbelievable as "the spy next door," a vibe I'm sure the series is going for. She's no Jennifer Garner (but Garner was only enjoyable in the first season of Alias, before both she and the series went elsewhere--Garner to movie stardom and Alias to a confounding level of stupidity that only the writers could decipher, and sadly not on screen). Add to Perabo's disappointing performance (I loved her in Imagine Me & You), an over-the-top cameo by Peter Gallagher, Christopher Gorham as the most non-convincing sighted actor playing a blind character ever, and the whole un-Bourne feeling of yet another "quirky" character-driven series on USA.
But the worst part of the whole first episode is the ending. They spend the entire episode setting up Annie as a super agent, a can-do kind of woman who speaks 6 languages, aces all her CIA training tests, and can kick ass, too. And what do they do with the climactic fight scene at the end? They have her mysterious boyfriend--the one who goes missing in the flashback in the beginning--come in and shoot the bad guy for her. So much for empowerment.
As far as my DVR goes, I'll be happy to keep Covert Affairs covert from it all this summer. I'll just wait for Mad Men next Sunday to add to my summer viewing list.
I am a Mad Men fanatic. Can't wait for the new season to start this Sunday night. I am so desperate for decent summer television I have taken to watching reruns on VOD... the new Valium Of Domestic housewives!!!
Posted by: Melanie Preschutti | July 23, 2010 at 10:22 AM
Back when I had a television (2006?), I loved USA. My favorite show was The 4400. I liked reruns of L&O:SVU. I also enjoyed Monk, Psych, and The Dead Zone. And I watched Monday Night RAW on occasion (don't judge me).
But I can't account for what's on now.
Posted by: Angela | July 17, 2010 at 04:51 PM