Leading up to Covert Affairs’ premiere, I made a point to block out as much information about the show as I could. Other than casting news, and the basic logline of the show, I managed to keep myself pretty well in the dark (Thus my surprise to see James Parriott in the credits last week). One my other surprises, though, was finding out in the pilot that Chris Gorham’s character, Auggie Anderson, was blind. It is an interesting choice, and one that I think works very well for the actor, the character, and the show.
I’m one of the last people who’d claim to know, on a technical level, how well Gorham is portraying Auggie as a man who lost his sight in his adult life. I’m just going to assume that the work is good, and move on. I’m interested in how the writing team will play his ongoing reaction to his loss. Sure, Auggie seems to have adjusted well, playing along with the little jokes, like the ribbing he took when he said Annie looks like a cheerleader. I think though, that his real story this season will be about his inability to handle not being the CIA officer he once was.
It was just one subtle clue this week; Auggie going to Georgetown to watch Annie work. Twice. It is one part “jonesing for fieldwork” as he said, and one part his feelings for Annie. Not too developed or obvious yet, but they’re there, manifesting themselves as jealousy and the whole protective thing he’s got going on. I look forward to seeing where both of those storylines take us.
I know it might be a little thing to everyone else, but this whole thing with the CIA operating on domestic soil really bothers me. It is one of the major tenets of the work that the company does, and it is completely ignored here. Between that, and the crappy tradecraft of the agents in Caracas (that has to the worst brush pass ever to be seen on television … Please, guys, watch Leverage to see how it is done), there is room for improvement on the technical side of things.
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Jul 28, 2010 @ 08:52 EST5EDT
yeah … the CIA operating domestically irks me since that would be completely illegal … but I guess it’s better than making something up (and one can imagine that if any agency were going to do something like this, it would be the CIA).
I do like the show though … goes along well with Psych, Leverage, Eureka, Royal Pains, Burn Notice, et al