Jun 23, 2014
Covert Affairs Returns Tomorrow Night
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George Smiley: An Introduction
The Humanist Spy To coincide with the U.S. roll-out of Tomas Alfredson’s fantastic new feature film adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinke...
About Me
- Tanner
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- Though I post here under the name Tanner, my real name is Matthew Bradford, and I'm a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. I'm coauthor of the graphic novel Night and Fog and I co-wrote and co-produced the 2014 horror feature Dead Within.
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3 comments:
Never got into the whole 'dramedy' work/life balance spy shows like Alias and Covert Affairs.
Whatever happened to full spy shows that weren't about balancing personal and work affairs? What also happened to spy shows starring male heroes rather than a femme fatale? Too much Alias, Nikita, Annie Walker types and not enough Solo, Phelps, Templar or Al Mundy type characters on modern spy television...
I don't think I'd call either Alias or Covert Affairs "dramady." Drama, yeah, but neither really has much comedy. The work/life stuff on the first season of Alias was definitely the worst part. Who ever wanted to follow the storyline of Francie opening a restaurant? Covert Affairs also drifted away from that, writing out Annie's sister just as Alias wrote out Francie and Will. I do think that there's good drama to be mined from a spy balancing work and life though. I think Covert Affairs does it really well with the Peter Gallagher character and his wife. Classically, Callan and The Sandbaggers did it best.
It's a great point that there aren't male spy heroes on television anymore, and it's weird! Weird because in movies there are basically no female spy heroes (Salt notwithstanding--who was originally written as a man anyway), and on TV there are basically ONLY female spy heroes. Very odd. Of course, we do have Jack Bauer back now! NBC's got a male spy lead coming up mid-season (Red Zone, I think?), but a female one in the fall (State of Affairs). And TNT has Sean Bean starring in Legends later this summer. So there are a few!
Watched the season opener last night. I find it hard to believe that the Agency would throw her immediately into an operation after being awol for four months. Their only excuse is that she knew what the terrorist looked like. Also, the show or any other action/spy show loses credibility when the heroine is running down the street chasing the bad guy in four inch heels.
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