Undercovers - Pilot

Pilots are always meah, you know, nothing’s really breathtaking, just a showcase of characters and situations. There are two exceptions to this general rule: Alias and Lost, both shows brought to you by a tiny man by the name of J.J. Abrams. Some things this man has written have changed my life. I would even watch a 7^th Heaven reboot if he was involved.

That’s why I didn’t think twice before tuning in to the series premiere of Undercovers. A.k.a. Alias 2.0.

Let me start by telling you how much I love Alias, better yet, let me show you how much I love Alias.

This is me at a TV show themed birthday party last week. LAST WEEK. So you get where I stand right? (on the left side I'm clearly cracking into a super secure remote system from a cell phone)

Let me start from the beginning. First scene of the show there’s a spy running away with a BAD ROBOT pen drive. Number one, I want that; number two, you getting confident J.J.? Awesome. Smirks. He then proceeds to launch himself off buildings while the drums of an old Alias score come tumbling in. See what I mean? I bet they didn’t even re-record it. And it gets better!

Our heroes are introduced and they own a catering service. Our leading lady has a stupid black sister. Francine anyone??

They have resigned from CIA five years before and they are called back on duty by an old bald guy whom we will see later on wearing a collar shirt and tie over boxers, comic relief. Now freeze. Since this notion is stated (the retirement not the boxers) I am never going to see these guys’ faces ever again. All I see is their bodies, and on top of those there are Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan’s heads respectively. Come on. This is basically what happens some years after the end of Alias. Syd and Vaughn grow tired of the house on the beach and get back in the game. I don’t care about you, but that is the show I am going to be seeing from now on.

After a brief scene where we’re thrust with the notion that Syd and Vaughn are missing being spies after all, we are introduced to the astonishing new concept of a CGI postcard which announces the city where the action is going to take place. Wow this shit is avant garde!

I am not going to get into the details of the mission here but let me note two things. Throughout the episode I counted five different pairs of Loubs on this woman. Seriously? She goes to break into an apartment in Madrid wearing a white crepe pencil skirt suit paired with red patent 4.5 inch heeled pumps. Are you shitting me? All the while he looks like he just stepped off an Armani catwalk. I mean Syd had her fucking stylish moments too but keep it real you guys! Secondly I am nor Spanish nor French but I live close by both of these countries and I have never heard quite as good faux accents before. I’m talking every single spy show ever made. Need more dialect coaches? “No gracias estamos bien”.

When we go back to the first agent we met we are presented with the obvious J.J. self-reference. The chair scene. In the first episode of Alias flame hot red motherfucking Sydney Bristow was being tortured by the bad ass round glassed creepy Chinese guy. Here the blondie agent is being punched in the face by the bland chubby Russian guy.

Just a few minutes later we are treated with the second reference. The jumping off a plane scene. I would probably bet my Alias DVD collection that they used the exact same backdrop! Syd and Vaughn talking over the slide at the back of the aircraft, aw memories…

Finally our most favorite character of the J.J. Abrams franchise is mentioned twice: Langley, Virginia. I missed you so much!

I enjoyed the first hour of this show although my jaw never dropped and that’s news to me on a J.J. Abrams’ production. I am going to tune in again even if I’m still unsure if I ought to be happy he went back to his roots and still has it going on or biased because he’s serving us a re-heated soup.