At first glance Covert Affairs appears to be USA Network’s attempt at making a sort of Alias light.  It’s about a young, pretty female CIA agent after all.  And all the commercials show her running around in all sorts of spy scenarios.  But alas there’s no Rambaldi artifacts, no spy daddy, not even an agency pretending to be the CIA that really isn’t here.  Nope Covert Affairs stands on its own and fits extremely well into USA’s already pretty strong lineup of original shows.

 

Covert Affairs is about Annie (Piper Perabo; Coyote Ugly, Lost & Delirious), a young CIA agent who is pulled out of training early because of her advanced language skills.  After doing well on this initial assignment it’s determined she’ll stay as an active agent and not go back into training, so basically she’s learning a lot as she goes along.  She is no Sydney Bristow.  She’s got skills in many areas, and is talented and smart, but she’s just a beginner trying to navigate both the dangerous spy life out on missions and the internal shark tank of the CIA.  Speaking of the internal CIA, it’s here we find some excellent familiar faces.  There’s Christopher Gorham (Jake 2.0, Ugly Betty) as the resident tech guy Auggie, who is an ex-field officer who is now blind. Then there’s Kari Matchett (24) & Peter Gallagher (The O.C.) who play Annie’s bosses and a married couple in a troubled relationship.  Also thrown in the CIA world is Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) as Gallagher’s character’s sort of guy watching over his wife’s division.  Annie also has a family life, mostly in the form of a sister (Anne Dudek; House) who’s guest house she lives in.  Annie’s sister thinks she works for the Smithsonian, as does everyone outside the CIA.

 

Like  I said at the beginning this show stands very much on it’s own.  It’s a lite show.  One you don’t need heavy investment in, much like USA’s other shows.  There is a small bit of ongoing story involving a mysterious one night (well it was a couple of nights, but I’m trying to keep this brief) stand who Annie met on a vacation some years ago and instantly fell in love with but who just disappeared when she woke up one morning.  I’m trying to keep this spoiler free and the show hasn’t revealed much so I’ll leave it at that.  Besides the very beginning of the first episode, where we see that one night stand and Perabo wearing next to nothing, Covert Affairs doesn’t really rely on Perabo’s sexuality as it’s draw.  It does make constant reference to her beauty but she’s not like a dress up doll wearing a different skimpy outfit or seducing someone every other scene.  The show instead depends on solid writing and well directed action scenes.  Perabo is an excellent lead and really does carry the show well.  Gorham has always been a strong actor and as a big co-star here he does admirably, bringing some charm to his character.

 

Overall if you like action shows and you like something that doesn’t take a huge investment to watch then you’ll love this show.  It’s very well done and is definitely worth a watch.