Colin Glass (Tom Ellis) is a CIA agent with a laissez-faire attitude towards the law. Bill Goodman (Nick Gehfluss) is a by-the-book FBI special agent with a commitment to the law as sturdy as his news anchor haircut. From their first meeting, it’s clear that they’re polar opposites, but with a rogue agent on the run with sensitive government information that could threaten national security, they’ll have to team up to prevent national ruin.
Alongside the perennial stranglehold of the “NCIS” franchise, CBS has become increasingly dominated by procedural dramas from the king of the format, “Law and Order” creator Dick Wolf. Between the mothership “FBI” and its two now-canceled spinoffs “FBI: Most Wanted” and “FBI: International,” Wolf has given the network well over 300 episodes of entertainment. Why stop at a good thing now (although, much to our disappointment, the show is not called “FBI: CIA.”)
Premiering this Monday after a drawn out production process that included the exit of two showrunners and one director, actor Eriq La Salle, “CIA” is another reminder of CBS’s commitment to never messing with the formula.
Before he was replaced by Warren Leight (who was then swapped out for Mike Weiss), original showrunner David Hudgins said that “CIA” would differ from “FBI” because it would be more focused on the relationship dynamic between its leads. The show does have a significantly smaller cast than, say, “NCIS” with its ensemble of big personalities and banter, with the pilot focusing almost exclusively on Glass and Goodman.
But one would be hard pressed to call this relationship a “dynamic.” We have our loose cannon CIA officer who thinks the rule of law should be occasionally overlooked in the name of justice, and our stick-up-his-rear FBI agent who does as he’s told. Exposition endlessly explains their base motivations, with Colin being described as “driving on the wrong side of the road” (get it? Because he’s also British) and Bill declaring his belief in “following the Constitution.” Although if you find that too complicated, you can just note that the edgy cop is wearing a leather jacket and the stoic one’s surname is literally “Goodman.”
It’s classic buddy cop stuff, a “Lethal Weapon” without the jokes, which is part of the problem. You can predict everything both Colin and Bill are going to say or do, and while both are credible actors with no shortage of charm, they’re bogged down by perfunctory writing. Ellis has played variations of this role so many times before, and Gehlfuss, an alumnus of Dick Wolf’s “Chicago Med”, has procedural acting down to a tee. You’re supposed to root for the rulebreaker and for the devotee of justice to loosen up and be OK with casual subterfuge. It’s certainly a choice to want your audience to think of the CIA as above-the-law heroes, but the procedural genre has never been known for its progressive values and “CIA” is no different.
It does make everyone involved seem simultaneously too good and oddly inept at their jobs, however. Such is the plight of the genre: Keep it simple for general audiences but have it seem hugely complex to keep them hooked in the long term. The pilot mystery involves a former CIA asset who has committed a heist to steal dangerous technology he helped create. Uncovering the truth of this case is apparently too complex for the FBI, but the CIA figures it out in record time. Really, it feels like a case we’ve seen a dozen times before on any number of these shows. Everything about “CIA” feels like a rehash: the plots, the dynamics, the dialogue, even the sound effects. We don’t even get any shameless beefcake, as they make Ellis wear a robe to the sauna when he meets a source for info.
Judging a show like this based on one episode, where everything is hurriedly explained to us as though the showrunners are on a time crunch, is a tough one since this is a genre where telling the audience exactly what everyone is saying and thinking is part of its appeal. Yeah, it’s all cliched as all hell, but that’s what’s made CBS the king of network TV for so long. “NCIS” hasn’t spent decades being one of the most-watched shows on television because it radically reinvents the medium, and Dick Wolf has spent his long and illustrious career largely committed to the same ethos. When he does attempt to deviate from the formula, viewers often revolt. There’s a reason “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” is still on the air and “Trial by Jury” was canceled after one season.
“CIA” is a full house bingo card of procedural expectations, as desired by viewers and network executives alike. Will it matter that it’s so join-the-dots in its execution that it has the potential to be indistinguishable from its “FBI” siblings? Or is that by design? The pilot hints at some possibly fun spy drama and a hunt for a mole, but don’t expect too many shocks. That’d be beside the point.
“CIA” premieres Monday, Feb. 23 on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.
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