I have to agree that Christopher Gorham was also my favorite part of "Covert Affairs" as well. I kept telling my boyfriend he was going to be the Vaughn to Annie's Sydney, but then he brought up the point of him not really being able to pull off Vaughn's ultimate disguise: glasses. No one can recognize Vaughn in his glasses disguise. Still, I can't wait to see how Oded Fehr comes into the whole thing.
Why wouldn't Augie be able to pull off the glasses disguise?
I think Augie is a mix of Vaughn and Marshall, which is an interesting mix. I like it. Although I wish they'd gotten a blind actor for the part, I cannot wholly condemn anything that brings me more Christopher Gorham.
Because, really, Vaughn's disguises almost always involved glasses, unless they involved gelled hair, and somehow that always fooled everyone. Who else could pull off such a lame con with that much finese? :).
Christopher Gorham is pretty much lovable in everything I've seen him in but, I agree, there are plenty of talented blind actors that couldve been great in the role.
I didn't hear about this show until yesterday night, and then someone reported back to me that it was like Piper watched the Alias DVDs and based all of her expressions and tones on Jen Garner. Just watching the TV spot for it, I could see what they meant. So now I am intrigued but not overly so? I will see if I can catch it at least.
There is a serious lack of a SpyDaddy. "Covert Affairs" will not be bringing us a new Spyfam to adore, alas. But there were at least some hijinks.
Several people remarked on the Jennifer Garner - Piper Perabo thing, but I have to say I personally only saw it once, when PP had on sunglasses. There are a lot of similarities, but I think some of it will come out in the wash.
I also loved Christopher Gorham best of all the things about the Covert Affairs pilot. I adore him already, but he really was the most appealing of the characters, and they could do some interesting things with his story if they choose. I was not impressed with the writing, however; from the very first scene, I was like "Starting off a kick-ass spy shenanigans show with a ham-handed 'polygraph' blah-blah-blah exposition interview? Really? You couldn't come up with anything better?" And this is the pilot, where they had time to craft. It makes me worried about the writing breaking down as the show moves along.
My feminist side was kicking a bit, too. Did you notice how Annie (or Joan, for that matter) is completely framed by the men in her life? And the Bechdel Test fail? It fell on the side of paying lip service rather than action to the whole independent-female-spy role. I'm sticking around to see how it pans out - mostly because of Augie - but I'm wary.
It passes Bechdel -- Joan and Annie talk about her mission repeatedly, and Annie and her sister talk generally about her life stress. (Annie and her sister also talk about a guy, but in a different, separate conversation. Also, I assume her sister has a name; I just don't remember it.) I think it's too early to call on whether Annie is "framed by the men in her life" -- I mean, there really aren't any men in her life ongoing. But there is the issue with her ex. Right now, drawing him out appears to be part of the reason for her recruitment; I'll have to see how that plays out. But even Sydney Bristow was very "framed" in that way -- Jack, Sloane, Danny (then Will) and Vaughn essentially formed the four corners of the world she traveled in. And yet I never for an instant felt like Sydney was not independent and taking control of her own destiny. So I'm not knocking "Covert Affairs" for that
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Some of it was pilotitis, but it felt like a bad case to me. I'm not saying it's irredeemable, just that the more fumblingly a pilot handles the usual pilot issues, the more it potentially indicates less-than-good writing in the show's future.
I'll cede the point on Bechdel; I think the Joan-Annie interaction was retroactively tainted for me by the revelation that she's using Annie just because of her ex. (I was also somewhat annoyed that the "talking about the mission" largely consisted of Joan telling Annie she could pass as a hooker and advising her not to sleep with Stas, like she needed to be told. I haven't been told enough about Joan to figure out if that was deliberate condescension because she resented having to bring Annie in because of the ex angle and/or grief over whoever it was Annie's replacing, or if it was just some casual sexism.) That, and the fact that The Ex is the reason she decided to join the CIA (which was a little "Bwuh?" to me), rather than any sense of duty or patriotism or what have you; these were the
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I didn't take Joan's first conversations with Annie as badly as you did; she's clearly being condescending, but I got the impression that (a) it was more hazing than a statement of Joan's real belief in Annie's ability or lack thereof, and that (b) Joan does some variation of this to virtually everyone. (Even Augie catches some heat from her, and they've apparently worked together well for years.) That said, I kept comparing the call-girl scenario here vs. the ones in Alias. In Alias, the subtext of those scenes -- invariably -- was "men are such idiots that they will fall for this every time." In Covert Affairs, I felt like they were actually trying to play it as hot. So I didn't like that as much, but OTOH, I didn't find it overtly derogatory toward Annie
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I confess to sniffing and upturning my nose to each ad I see for this. Not only because it looks like a not-as-good-rip-off, but I'm not sure there is space in my heart for more than Alias, when it comes to SpyDrama.
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I think Augie is a mix of Vaughn and Marshall, which is an interesting mix. I like it. Although I wish they'd gotten a blind actor for the part, I cannot wholly condemn anything that brings me more Christopher Gorham.
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Christopher Gorham is pretty much lovable in everything I've seen him in but, I agree, there are plenty of talented blind actors that couldve been great in the role.
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(DOES SHE HAVE A SPYDADDY. THAT IS THE QUESTION.)
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Several people remarked on the Jennifer Garner - Piper Perabo thing, but I have to say I personally only saw it once, when PP had on sunglasses. There are a lot of similarities, but I think some of it will come out in the wash.
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My feminist side was kicking a bit, too. Did you notice how Annie (or Joan, for that matter) is completely framed by the men in her life? And the Bechdel Test fail? It fell on the side of paying lip service rather than action to the whole independent-female-spy role. I'm sticking around to see how it pans out - mostly because of Augie - but I'm wary.
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I'll cede the point on Bechdel; I think the Joan-Annie interaction was retroactively tainted for me by the revelation that she's using Annie just because of her ex. (I was also somewhat annoyed that the "talking about the mission" largely consisted of Joan telling Annie she could pass as a hooker and advising her not to sleep with Stas, like she needed to be told. I haven't been told enough about Joan to figure out if that was deliberate condescension because she resented having to bring Annie in because of the ex angle and/or grief over whoever it was Annie's replacing, or if it was just some casual sexism.) That, and the fact that The Ex is the reason she decided to join the CIA (which was a little "Bwuh?" to me), rather than any sense of duty or patriotism or what have you; these were the ( ... )
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