Covert Affairs - Early Impressions

USA Network has a great track record with original programming over the last few years. With shows such as Monk, Psych, In Plain Sight, Burn Notice, White Collar and Royal Pains gracing their schedule. USA has adopted the slogan Characters Welcome, and they have certainly lived up to all it implies with these series. The original programming offered by USA is packed with characters, all of whom help elevate procedural dramas into something more engaging. Last night I took a look at the pilot episode of Covert Affairs. For my impressions, read more after the jump.



With Covert Affairs, USA has once again succeeded in creating a group of captivating characters inside a premise that makes them engaging. Covert Affairs centers around Annie Walker (Piper Perabo), a young CIA Agent with expert language skills. She is called up a month early from training for those very skills, and her fist job allows her to demonstrate her unique skills. She meets Auggie Anderson (Christopher Gorham) her first day, a blind operative that becomes her guide. The rest of the main characters are Joan Campbell (Kari Matchett) as Annie's superior at the CIA. Arthur Campbell (Peter Gallagher) is Joan's husband and Director of the Clandestine Services Department. Annie's sister Danielle (Anne Dudek) and Jai Wilcox (Sendhil Ramamurthy) joins the cast in the second episode as another agent. You should recognize the names, if not the faces of many of the actors, I'll leave it to you to look up their resumes.

The pilot was directed by Tim Matheson, who has also directed episodes of White Collar, Burn Notice and Psych for USA. The show is produced by Doug Liman and David Bartis. Liman just finished directing Fair Game, the Valerie Plame biopic. Plame met with the Perabo and Gorham to give them a little insight into the minds of CIA operatives.

The pilot episode is fun. There are some moments that fail to hit the mark, but there are so many more moments that hit the right note, ignoring those missteps is easy to do. To think of this show as a retread of similar material is an easy mistake to make. There are comparisons to Alias, since Piper Perabo spends much of the Pilot looking like Jennifer Garner. It is also easy to see brief flourishes of La Femme Nikita in the mix, with interesting plotting and less "big budget" style action, but that might just be the USA Network connection. Overall, the pilot does a good job putting the pieces together, setting up the premise and the overlying mythology that will unfold during the first season. I'll surely stick around for a few more episodes, being of the firm belief that you can't truly judge a series in less than three episodes.

Some things to look for in the pilot episode:
Clarke Peters as Annie's Old Professor
Mingus references
Unique use of a Listerine Fresh-Strip

To learn more about the characters or to see a trailer, check it out at:
http://usanetwork.com/series/covertaffairs