Review – Undercovers
Undercovers – NBC – 8:00/7:00pm Wednesday – USA
NBC wants a hit. Nay, NBC NEEDS a hit, and to get a hit it would seem that the network is willing to throw as much money as the problem as possible. Enter J.J. Abrams (creator of such epic roller-coaster rides as Lost and Fringe) with Undercovers, a show that seems to take the entire budget of The CW and throw it all into its first episode.
J.J. Abrams is a man who knows how to produce a pilot. The first episode of Lost is quite easily one of the best pilots ever made, and while the Fringe pilot dragged on a touch there’s no denying that it effectively established the world that is Fringe. Undercovers falls somewhere between the two and quickly builds its own rhythms and own world view whilst delivering a slick, action-packed, funny hour of television.
Undercovers is the story of Samantha & Steven Bloom, a married couple who run a catering business and who also used to be spies. They’ve been pulled back into the spy game by Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney who was the terrifying George Hearst on Deadwood), a grumpy CIA agent who doesn’t like that flashy upstarts like Mr. & Mrs. Bloom have been given free reign over the Agency’s resources. One of those resources is Bill Hoyt, a go-to gadget man who’s got a bit of a man crush on his idol Steven Bloom. As played by Ben Schwartz (yeah, he played the douchey Jean-Ralphio on Parks & Recreation) Hoyt is the perfect comic foil for the uber-sexy Bloom & Bloom.
Mr. & Mrs. Bloom are played by Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw and it’s been mentioned elsewhere but, yes, they are a pair of sexy, funny black actors who are fronting a network series in a time when it almost feels like TV has gotten whiter than ever. Kodjoe and Mbatha-Raw have wonderful chemistry, and Kodjoe especially has crack comic timing. It’s also good that we get a pair fresh faces, instead of movie types slumming it, to front our massive new spy romp.
Oh, and is it ever a massive romp. Like I said earlier NBC have backed up the money truck and dumped it on J.J. Abrams’s lawn. This show looks fantastic; every dollar spent has been put to good use as we’re treated to chase scenes across rooftops in Paris, to super-spies leaping out of airplanes, and even a bank heist thrown in for good measure. This has all the car chases and gun battles of Hawaii Five-0 but this has some brains and humour behind the flashy exterior. Undercovers is like a sexier, smarter, funnier, and just flat out better version of Human Target.
This isn’t a perfect pilot, which is obvious from the fact the word ‘SEXpionage’ gets used three times too many. What it does have is buckets of charisma and that makes up for any short fallings in the plot. Unlike Human Target, or the mundane Covert Affairs, Undercovers is blessed that it’s come from the mind of J.J. Abrams. The man doesn’t tend to do stand-alone episodes. The clock isn’t just going to reset at the end of the hour and next week we’ll be back to do it all over again. The story will move forward, the characters will grow, and things will actually happen. Even when Fringe is dealing with a tired freak-of-the-week it still manages to find a way to push the overarching plot forward. That’s the big reason that Undercovers is better than most of the other new shows – the feeling that this will still be good five episodes/twelve episodes/three seasons from now. Undercovers may not be the best new show of the season but it sure is one of the most fun.
Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Good
