Undercovers

This show was pretty good. Never found its audience.

I like action TV shows, I like throwback shows and I like Abrams, but Undercovers is dreadfully dull.

The show has very high production values, but the recycled plots do nothing to cash in on them. Locales and set pieces are interchangeable as the by-the-numbers plots unfold. There's nary an original idea to be found.

This might not be such a problem if we at least had good characters, but Undercovers is lacking there, too. We get only the most cursory back story for our leads. They seem to exist only in the moment. Even what we know about their past doesn't seem to jibe with what we see. First, they show no indication that they were ever highly trained operatives. They carry themselves like second-year agents, not the top spies who had to be reactivated because no one else could handle the job. Also, Samantha had a relationship with two characters on the show, but she has absolutely no chemistry with either of them.

And that is the nail in the coffin for the show. All the other weaknesses of the show could be said about a similar cheesy mystery show from the 70s/80s: Hart to Hart. But the two leads in that show had chemistry, and it carried the entire series. The only thing that carries Undercovers is Gerald McRaney...but his appearances are too brief to do anything more than remind us of what this show could have been.

"Undercovers" is first and foremost entertainment. The program is framed in such a way as to present a myriad of possible directions. Each character has so much potential for back story and fore shadowing. I was impressed with the casting of veteran performers and fresh new talent. Much is made of the degree of "Blackness" of the principal characters. I believe the creators of the show made and brilliant move in casting. The characters have the flexibility in appearance to have a viable presence in the environments of the script. I enjoy the pace of the show and the fact that the couple is in a loving and supportive relationship. I look forward to potential situations ahead and I will be sure to GuGu every Wednesday.

It is hard to describe what it is, JJ Abrams shows, though conventional television, have an an edge. Perhaps it is something about the characters, that is intriguing, that make you want to know what really makes them tick. Think "Alias." With these two characters, all I want to do is look at them. Which, by the way, is not a bad way to spend an hour in front of the TV.

I can only conclude that this is an Abrams knock off. I think NBC has been doing so poorly in the ratings that they went out and bought the equivalent of a fake Louis Vuitton purse (the kind you by on the streets of Shanghai or Beijing).

I soooo wanted to like ths show. Ive seen them both in other work, but playing 2 incredibly good lioking people for eye candy with saccharine sweet love scenes was vapid. Both are multi-lingual, so there's that, but it was under utilized. They needed a better script, a better back story, something to look forward to tune into, better co-stars, guest stars, less bedroom scenes, more ripped from the headline plots, something to make you think, something to make you feel, atear-jerker moment or 2, something to make you take a vested interest in the characters besides their looks, a big secret or 2 revealed along the way. I loved her in Touch, Belle, & other work. I loved him in The Gospel & Crossing Jordan. So it was not them.