If pop culture is to be believed, after a certain amount of time, all marriages get boring. If Undercovers is going to be believed, then the perfect thing to combat this is going back to your old lives as spies. After all, blowing up crazy arms dealers sounds way more interesting than making four more vegetarian dishes for the Chan/Finkelstein wedding.
As a big Alias fan, I was of course excited about another J.J. Abrams spy show. My only real hope going into Undercovers is that it wouldn’t get mired in Rambaldi-like bullshit that eventually made Alias all but incomprehensible. So far there are no giant red balls, or secret texts, so that’s definitely a mark in Undercovers‘ favor.
With that said, this certainly isn’t the greatest pilot I’ve ever seen. There’s a big story to set up, and the episode really seemed to take its sweet time getting there. It had a lot of fun elements (snappy dialogue, leads with great chemistry, Hoyt), but they didn’t quite gel in this first episode. However, everything that I didn’t immediately fall in love with seemed like growing pains that would be sorted out in upcoming episodes.
The pacing never quite worked out, and the balance between their home and spy lives were a little off. Plus, there were some unanswered questions. Namely, is Gerald McRaney a bad guy? Sure, it could be that they’re just planning on addressing this later, but the way the show ended made that a bit unclear. His ominous phone conversation in which he hinted that the reason the Blooms have been conscripted was not what they thought seemed like it was going to lead somewhere big, but then it just kind of … didn’t.
Obviously I’m not the only person who’s going to be watching this with Alias still in the back of their mind. The writers need to be very careful not to have too many overlapping elements. When you get into the whole, “Are the CIA agents good guys or bad guys?” thing, it’s going to bring up way too many memories of SD-6. What the show definitely needs to stay away from is a “what if Sydney and Vaughan got married, retired, started a catering company, and went back to the spy life” kind of show. Unless, of course, Michael Vartan and Jennifer Garner are available to actually do that show. Then we definitely want it.
Despite its faults, Undercovers is definitely intriguing. At the very least, I’m going to check out the next two episodes to see if it’s worth continuing with. However, I have high hopes that it’s going to end up being pretty great.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Sep 22, 2010 @ 21:52 EST5EDT
I actually watched the preview episode and loved it from the writing to the acting to the cinematography. My only fear focused on its failure to land a steady audience due to its similarity to ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith.’
Wow, you and I have like minds. Almost exactly what I thought.
I agree, the chemistry and timing was a bit off, and the episode dragged for me. I’ve found that pilots like this can work it out over the course of the first season and become great. I’m not sure if I’ll tune in again or not, but I do adore Gerald McRaney so I may have to give it another try.
I found Hoyt to be the most annoying character in recent memory. So much so that I was hoping he would turn out to be evil so they would kill him. Not sure I can continue watching the show because of him.
But he’s supposed to be the new Marshall .. um, but I’m not thinking of Alias, nope. Not me.
Now Bob, please explain your new avatar….
Yes, but Marshall was not annoying. I think there was enough banter between the Blooms that we didn’t need a “comic relief” character. Certainly not one that only provide one, not-very-funny, joke.
Is there anything to explain? It’s me next to a large portrait of my Doppelganger, Bunsen Honeydew, in the queue for Muppetvision 3D at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Yeah, I thought he was annoying too. There’s not a lot bringing me back to this show next week, but I have to remember that I didn’t discover Alias until everyone said how great it was mid-season.
The avatar is so small I couldn’t tell that it was Honeydew … now there is no explanation needed … awesome!