USA - Covert Affairs

The correct reason to watch is Peter Gallagher.

Starts tomorrow. Got a decent review from Alan Sepinwall, who is pretty hard to please (I mean that as a compliment).

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-al...covert-affairs

The correct reason to watch is Piper P.

One of the things I love about her is that she sounds like she was created by Stan Lee.

It's got Christopher Gorham from Harper's Island. I might need to check this out.

I like to call him Christopher Gorham from Odyssey 5. Or Christopher Gorham from Jake 2.0. Or Christopher Gorham from Medical Investigation. Or Christopher Gorham from Out of Practice.

Man this dude has done a lot of short lived stuff.

Incidentally, Odyssey 5 was the shit.

He was in an ep of Buffy too, which was one of his finer moments.

I dunno. I like some of the players but this one feels like USA's first miss.

That would be In Plain Sight.

Alias without the Rambaldi Bullshit sounds fun to me.

And Billy Zane clone (or is Zane his clone?!) Gallagher is, of course, fantastic.

Gallagher was first by over a decade and awesome. Zane is the clone.

Crossing my fingers that Piper Perabo continues her tradition of gay for pay.

But I'll probably just tune in to stare at Gallagher's eyebrows.

C+. Not engaging, but not horrible. Still want to know where the Russian found that second gun at the end since he clearly left the first one on the serving cart at the Smithsonian.

I liked it well enough. I'm curious if the spy stuff is going to try to stay possible, or if they are going to do some of the ridiculous, but fun stuff too. Piper is such a cutie.

Piper looks good in this. Very charming first episode.

Lots of skin too, I thought I was watching Silk Stalkings at first.

The lie detector exposition was fucking terrible. As was the cheating husband/wife sub-plot. Did it NEED that? Could that not be cut and this be a regular 42 minute episode?

People saying it's like Alias. It's more like Alias: The Chick Flick Grey's Anatomy Version.

The spy stuff was better, as was any time Auggie was used. Gorham is just likeable, whatever he does.

I thought it was pretty weak. Piper Perabo is not a believable field agent in the least. Gallagher was good but he is stuck with a kind of terrible character. A cameo from Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) got my hopes up but I doubt we'll see much more of him. I appreciate that it wasn't another "professional in a weird situation that helps people" show exactly but that's the highest praise I can attribute.

Easily the worst of the USA shows. Glad to see White Collar back, though!

is her sister on the show Amber from HOUSE? The whole sister family thing is very similar to FRINGE's Olivia's character.

Re: USA - Covert Affairs

When I realized who it was I might have shouted Cutthroat Bitch!

It was fun but there was waaaay too much rather that should have been trimmed in the writer's room.

I'll stay for Perabo. Imagine Me and You earned her a lot of my goodwill

Not as horrible as expected. But I'll still be passing for the remainder.

Eh. I guess I'm not as adamant about USA programming as others. They've yet to make anything to truly wow me. I catch the occasional Royal Pains because I'm a rare Paulo Costanzo fan, and I could see myself doing the same here. The show's ultimately forgettable, but I find Piper so adorable that I'd watch her in just about anything. Nice to see Gallagher as well.

This will make perfect drunk weekend marathon fodder, but nothing more. But like I said, I'm hardly USA's target audience. Their shows are engaging to a point, but nothing worth fretting over.

Nothing about the pilot blew me away. I liked the cast. And it did have kind of an Alias vibe to it, which I appreciate. But the show is a little clunky. I'll keep the DVR set for a few more episodes to see if it hooks me.

this show is painful:

Best ever trainee is so good that she acts like a ditz all the time, volunteers that shes sleeping with her trainer, and asks her camp boss or CO or whatever what her mission is (because the CIA hands out their mission briefings to anyone in earshot, obviously)...

The whole gang yucks up about the fact they work for the CIA in a bar, mentioning the word itself like 20 times while surrounded by civilians... very covert guys, well done... The whole thing is just BS, at least Garner's friends werent CIA, keeping that life mostly to herself, and her emo parts were generally restricted to scenes with vaughn in that cage in s01... that helped make the emo parts work, knowing in the middle of a mission you probably wouldnt get a hamfisted dialogue about family vs spylife, or the benefits of the nicotine patch.

Also, goram is AWFUL as a blind guy ... And arent those eye sight pens supposed to use earphones for their radar beeps? He had a white ear bud in the first episode, gone in the second.

In the two episodes aired, ive seen him make eye contact with about everyone he speaks to, and exactly once has he acted like he didnt know precisely where shit like doorknobs and newly placed stuff on his desk was.... (workout room water bottle from ep 2)

Finally, someone who was in afganistan and sighted 4 years ago or less (as he is less than 5 years experience), would NEVER be heading the tech portion of a division. Dealing with new tech, etc is something a nonsighted person would have much more difficulty with, especially the recently blinded ... he literally cant analyze schematics, new tech, etc... its like a joke ... And this early on, he would be lucky to be out of bed and knowing braille ... he certainly wouldnt be tech head or anything else remotely worthwhile.

As far as Im concerned, this show barely even tries, and definitely fails.

As i said elsewhere, it feels like the greys-anatomization of yet another genre (after rookie blues).

Piper still brings the pretty and Jake 2.0 did a fine job I thought. So...I will keep watching. I'm hoping for some Alias level stuff soon though. Not the mythology crappy stuff, but some of the super spy stuff.

This has been a fairly light entertainment fix for me, but this week's episode has definitely been the strongest since the first. Gotta say that I'm getting hooked.

I'm still enjoying this show. This week Lauren Holly guest starred. Holy Hell, she hasn't aged well.

I think a part of that was the makeup job they put her in, but yeah, compare how she looked in that to her stint on NCIS and it doesn't certainly look good.

By the way, for those that want to know, the theme song is "Can You Save Me" by the band Apple Trees and Tangerines. They have it for a free download here. (cut and paste link into browser: http://www.mediafire.com/?i4nbmb51ryp0sqr) Pretty catchy.

Hey.. it's already been renewed for a second season!

Caught a few of these episodes. It's not bad, in a low-key charming way. I like that the politics (both office and international) feel somewhat realistic, except for the CIA running roughshod all over the FBI's jurisdiction in every episode. And I'm surprised to say that Piper Perabo is very good, just cause I've never seen anything with her in it besides bits of Coyote Ugly.

a good Auggie-centric episode of covert affairs. Lets hope there are more!

Got a kick out of the Snow Crash reference.

This week's was my least favorite episode so far. It wasn't a very interesting story and telling it in partial flashback killed any suspense over what was gonna happen to the art dealer. I also think the whole Ben mercer thing is one of the weaker parts of the show so far. As a character, he strikes me as a lazy bumb. If an inexperienced lone agent can take down the bad guys then surely he could have done it in an afternoon as the supposed badass Annie's bosses portray him as and maybe even kept his former asset alive in the process. Aside from that he's pretty lacking in charisma or chemistry with Perabo so it's hard to care much for their relationship.

Hopefully that story doesn't extend much beyond this season and they can find something else to explore. I guess we'll know for sure soon since I think their are only two episodes left.

Glad Ben Mercer is dead. His whole forced plotline was crap and he had no chemistry whatsoever with the lead. I'm not going to say I'm looking forward to season 2, but since it will debut in the summer where little else is on, I'll probably be starved enough for something new to watch that I'll give it a whirl again next year.

One thing that's really cool about this show is how they manage to shoot on location. Goes with the whole authenticity thing they're trying for with this show. This season finale had the most arch villain so far, so it works in small doses.

Did they really shoot on location? They didn't use any recognizable London landmarks in any shots with the actors in them, and the car stuff was obviously green screened (though frankly, whatever camera they were shooting with on these last two episodes made EVERYTHING look like it was green screen).

The meeting in the park had green screen written all over it. But I enjoy the show just fine. It keeps me engaged

It's very weird how half is green screen and then there are obvious on location shots as well.. we just don't know where they are really shooting to represent which country.

I do know they shoot in Toronto as the Washington DC area.

Well, it is a basic cable TV show. I wouldn't expect the entire show to shoot on location. Also, when I say location, I don't necessarily mean Sri Lanka. I just meant some non-backlot area (probably overseas) that doubles for the location they mean to be in. The majority of the chase sequences in the finale felt like they were shot on the streets of some South Asian city.