The Agency

I'm really afraid that the last episode of The Agency was broadcast tonight. I will miss this show. Yes, the storylines were good and contained just enough suspense and humor, but the real strength of this show was the character development. As I'm a veteran government bureaucrat, it was such a treat to watch The Agency. Unlike in so many Hollywood action shows, the characters here were not superhuman. You could easily picture Jackson Haisley at a Sat AM kids soccer match, Lex & Stiles watching a Skins game at the sports bar, Terri & Joshua doing some lunchtime shopping at Tyson's Corners or Georgetown, or Carl at Kennedy Center. Even the satanic Robert Quinn was just a guy trying to do the best job he could for his country. And who wouldn't want to have a boss like ex-Senator Gage. That collection of characters and the actors who portrayed them would have fit well into scores of offices around the beltway. Stiles was borderline at first, but even he became real. Not supermodels, not superbeings. Just normal folks. They and the show will be missed. Please smarten up, CBS!

I rarely watch network TV for anything more than an occasional graze, but since Daniel Benzali joined the cast, the Agency is my one unbreakable weekly appointment with a network show. The three-way relationship between Bridges, Carroll, and he has just the right edge. And, Carroll works so much better with both of them than he did with the holier-than-thou Pierce (insipidly played by Ronny Cox, a normally fine actor in the wrong role). In fact the series has improved markedly with every addition AND DELETION. The feckless Gil Bellows was the only agent who seemed not to belong, and he left in a fitting and dynamic demise. Speight gets better and better, and works well with Clennon and Turco.

But, what really rocks me is the even-handedness of the scripts, dealing head-on with terrorist issues more objectively and evenhandedly than our media dare to, and not a false note has been struck all year since this show came to be. Any show boasting Wolfgang Peterson and Shaun Cassidy as co-producers can be expected to be unusual, and the Agency succeeds in being anything BUT run-of-the-mill. Long may it run!

After seeing episodes on Al Qaeda and Anthrax, I am convinced that The Agency is true "must-see" TV. After Sept 11th, The Agency's plots became more real than they had expected, and the topics more surreal. Viewers may get the same enjoyment out of the CIA's intelligence-gathering techniques that they do from "CSI"'s evidence-gathering techniques. The Agency is very similar to it's lead-in, and it has better acting (something CSI isn't known for.)

Will Patton is the real star, I love everything he's done and he doesn't disappoint here. Gil Bellows has been equally fantastic as the new agent following in his brother's footsteps. Paige Turco and David Clennon are fun to watch together, and I like the stuff they do (photograph and passport editing) more than the field agent's stuff. Glorea Roth and Rocky Carroll are good but not great, and Ronny Cox is variable. Overall, it's a very enjoyable show that, when it works (about 80% of the time), is some of the best TV out there.

We started to watch the show to get a David Clennon fix. The first few episodes didn't grab us, but we've started watching again, having become rabid CSI fans. Wow! "The Agency" just gets better and better. Daniel Benzali adds an incredible edge to the show and the cast dynamic. We can't wait to see how the relationship between him and the new director (Beau Bridges) unfolds. I also agree with another poster that one of the best parts of the show is what Terri, Joshua and company do in the graphics department: I'd like some of that software! The plots, subplots, internal politics, interesting characters and Bondsian gadgets make for one of the best hours on TV.

I have recently caught this show on Saturdays (Yes, I have no life) and I have found it very amusing and interesting. I mean, in "French Kiss" four men in a MBE pull guns on each other thinking they are all terrorists only to find out they work for the CIA, FBI, INS and Secret Service respectively--that's a classic, especially since they really don't ever know what the other is doing. However, I find it remarkably amusing because, well, when you know enough about the

background of a show like this or the West Wing, it's interesting to see the little coincidences and foibles in the show. This show is funny, even at times when I think it should be dead serious I find it humorous. BTW, I noticed that Jennifer Brandes and Chris Hepler have written a couple of episodes this season--both of which I found to be very cool. Jennifer and Chris wrote a book that I thoroughly enjoyed because while it was factually accurate and intriguing, it was also written with a lot of humor and wit to it (except where certain parts were obviously injected by the editors for apparently no reason). Good work guys.