Secret Agent Man

America should really leave the Bond copies alone, and anyone who sees this program appear in their program guide should leave this program alone. Costas Mandylor has done some fairly good shows in the past, but he really should have known his own limits when it came to this role, it was almost painful watching him try to do a very bad Bond imitation, making what might have been a watchable show, a small disaster. Maybe if they had found a more Bond like person to play the lead this program could have been good, but as it is, stay well clear.

P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, who at the time were just starting the band The Grass Roots, wrote this song. Secret Agent was a US adaptation of a hit show in England called Dangerman, and CBS needed a 15-second theme to replace the British version. Sloan wrote of the song (from his website): "Somebody thought I should do a full length instrumental of the song. So I did. Meanwhile the song was picked by CBS and Johnny Rivers recorded the quick 15-second song for the TV show. The Ventures, the genius guitar instrumental group, heard the demo and recorded and released the song way before Rivers even had a finished song. The publishers asked me to finish the song, Rivers recorded it, not one of his favorite songs back then, but he's happier with it now."

This show is a very funny and exciting spy adventure series. The show centers around three spies. Monk is a lot like James Bond, except he doesn't leave a trail of dead women wherever he goes. He has a great sense of humor. Holiday is a more businesslike female spy. She does not like Monk always galavanting around with other women. Davis is the equipment man. He is responsible for many of the gadgets the spies use. Occasionally he even goes out into the field. This show has some serious elements, but ultimately it is just pure fun.

My only complaint about the show is the title. It is obvious that the makers of the show used it just so they could use a remade version of the old song. As I have shown, this show is more about a team not just one man. Anyone considering watching the show should not judge it by the title. If you do tune in I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I know I was. Now I make sure not to miss a single episode.

"Secret Agent Man" - think Get Smart with 90s sensibilities. The formula is the same - every week some evil organization threatens the world - and our two agents "Monk" (Costas Mandaylor) and "Holliday" (Dina Meyer) are off to save the day - with the help of a completely-hip and smarter-than-both-the-agents black "Q" named "Davis" (Dondre Whitfield).

Keeping the "Get Smart" analogy going, "The Chief" is named "Brubeck" (Paul Guilfoyle)

The differences with "Get Smart" - Monk's "weakness" isn't being a clod it's women. Holliday is pretty much like "Agent 99" - she's fashionable, buttoned-down, business-woman type that plays a very-rye straight-man for much of the show's humor (as well as being just amazing to look at). Unlike "The Chief" - "Brubeck" is an upper-crust, tea-drinking, breaucrat-on-steroids, with absolute dictitorial powers over the lives of our heros and a large lazy streak who always has complete confidence in the eventual success of his agents.

"Davis" is the somewhat snotty "who you gonna call?" keeper of the cool gadgets - the ones the agents always loose, break and destroy - and he gets in trouble for it (and often takes it out on the agents).

The action is good, the humor is smart (if somewhat predictable) - the editing is very sexy. However! The best part of every episode is the bevy of amazing-looking and very fashionably-(un)dressed women guest stars (think Paris-runway super models)

Lately, the frequent guest evil-doer is the former agent "Prima" (Musatta Vander).

All and all 7 of 10 - a good 60 minutes of mind-numbing sexy time wasting for when you're not doing anything important.