NBC have enjoyed incredible success in the last year with their formidable Monday night lineup, featuring The Voice, followed by the network's flagship drama The Blacklist, headlined by James Spader.
With The Blacklist firmly grounded among its audience, the peacock network is shifting the thriller to what will be a competitive Thursday night timeslot when it returns in the new year, opening its 10|9c Mondays timeslot up to the network's latest drama, State of Affairs, with Grey's Anatomy alum Katherine Heigl at the helm.
Premiering on November 17, fans of The Blacklist shouldn't find they're down a show among their Monday lineup. Change one three letter agency to another, stir in some politics, a drop of good banter, a dash of intensity, switch the lead characters' gender and you've got a workable recipe to sum up the new drama.
The series centers around the life of CIA analyst Charleston Tucker, played by Heigl. She leads a group of analysts who compile the President's Daily Briefing (PDB), a document containing the biggest issues of the day which is presented to the President.
The hectic work schedule aside, Charlie's personal life also plays out, in the wake of her fiancé's death in a suspicious terrorist attack overseas. Charlie witnessed Aaron Payton's death in the firefight and narrowly escaped with her own life. This makes Charlie's relationship with the President much more personal, because Aaron was President Constance Payton's son.
My first impressions of the pilot were very good. A high standard in all major areas has been set early on.
Having watched and enjoyed Katherine Heigl's performances in Grey's Anatomy, her performance as a series lead was something I observed pretty closely. She did a very good job in a role which has variety in abundance, and her presence on screen was good too.
It's not all about Heigl, though. The vastly experienced Alfre Woodard stars as the US's first black female President. Sheila Vand, Adam Kaufman, Cliff Chamberlain and Tommy Savas pick up supporting roles, with most of them playing fellow CIA analysts under Heigl's character, Tucker. While I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the supporting cast, the general vibe among them came off really nicely, which is a good sign. Clearly the characters have a close bond, and the colorful banter between them reflects that.
Joe Carnahan is in the director's chair for the pilot, and does a really nice job. Plenty of the techniques he uses in The Blacklist cross over into State of Affairs. The series is leveraging flashbacks to tell the story of Charleston and her fiancé, and the flashback firefight scenes in the pilot are the best I've seen on television. When you see them, you'll understand why.
The pilot doesn't reveal a great deal about the direction of the storyline but it does set the scene quite nicely. It gives the viewer a good look at the characters, and demonstrates reasonably clearly what the viewer is in for each week. What will make or break the storyline is how much of the episodes each week build on the serialized story.
Aside from that, the level of intensity in the pilot is well controlled, and the tempo is really well done. There's a good score and good choice of backing tracks to boot. While it would take the next best thing to a miracle for this series to gain a following akin to The Blacklist, this series should appeal to a reasonably wide viewer pool, considering it features a strong female lead, and has a serialized element. The series does have to set itself apart early on from other dramas that share the genre, as intelligence agencies and political themes are pretty frequent on the television landscape. NBC's promotional material for State of Affairs has been excellent, so how viewers receive the series will be interesting to keep tabs on. My only real criticism at this point is the bizarre character names, which are a bit of a tongue-twister.
Thanks for reading my State of Affairs preview! You can view an extended promo here, and keep tabs on its ratings on my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com/stateofaffairs. If you have any questions, thoughts or theories, share them in the comments below!
State of Affairs premieres November 17, 10|9c, on NBC
Jimmy.
