Under Cover

Based on the short lived television series of the same name, Linda Purl is Kate Del'Amico, the Washington wife of Dylan (Anthony John Denison) who is thought to be a double agent for the National Intelligence Ageny. Kate assisted Dylan in Iran in 1980 with Flynn (John Rhys-Davies), and she travels to Yalta in the USSR to rescue Dylan from the KGB who plot to assassinate Kerensky, second in charge to Gorbachov.

Purl wears a black wig for her spy work, sings Stand By Me with her partners, dons a clown outfit for a costume party, and gives emphasis to `not' in `You are not going to throw Dylan away'.

The teleplay by William Broyles Jnr confuses the plot against Kerensky with a red herring about Gorbachov's visit to Dallas, with appropriate code name JFK, but has the head bad guy say `We don't want Gorbachov to die a martyr. We want him to live a failure'. When Dylan bates him with `Marxism doesn't work', he replies `Christianity doesn't work. Should the Pope dismantle the church because Christ has not returned?'. There is one laugh line when Stewart Merriman (Josef Sommer), the head of The Company taskforce says `If we have learned anything in this organisation, it's how little we know', and is told by FBI director Waugh (G W Bailey) `Save it for your memoirs'.

Director Harry Winer can't enliven the lugubrious proceedings, matters not helped by a generic action music score from Bill Conti on a bad day. The Agency office has `top secret' posted everywhere, and the scene of Dylan being chased by a mob of Arabs carrying pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeni borders on camp.

We were so sorry when this series was cancelled. The premise was fascinating with very effective husband and wife spies who nevertheless had a great family at home. The cast were very natural and had great chemistry. We loved it and were looking forward to a long run. But the storyline was set in the Middle East, and right after the first episode the Iraq War began. The government strongly suggested this series should not be aired. For awhile it was promised it might be back with some retooling, but that never happened. It was one of the missed opportunities in broadcast tv because Anthony John Denison and Linda Purl and John Rhys Davies worked so well together.