Person of Interest Trailer

CBS has released a short preview (via io9) of their freshly picked up J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan show Person of Interest, which stars Michael Emerson (who was so great as Benjamin Linus on Lost) and Jim Caviezel (who was so bland as Six on the disappointing remake of The Prisoner).  Caviezel stars as a presumed-dead CIA agent recruited by a reclusive billionaire (Emerson) to use his spy skills to wage a vigilante war on crime in New York... before it happens. Up until that last Minority Report twist, it basically sounds like The Equalizer (ex-spy uses skills to fight crime in NYC) meets Batman (self-financed billionaire wages war on crime). The Batman connection is no coincidence, either. Person of Interest comes from the team of J.J. Abrams (Alias, Mission: Impossible III, Undercovers) and Jonah Nolan, brother of Christopher and co-writer of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.  The pre-crime aspect seems from the clip to be an expansion of a concept Nolan first explored in The Dark Knight: the use of a network of security cameras to invade citizens' privacy for their protection.  It's a theme also explored on contemporary UK spy series like MI-5 (aka Spooks), as CCTV cameras are a way of life in Britain.  It's hard to get a sense of a show from these partly behind-the-scenes upfront clips, but the premise and the people involed have me intrigued. My primary misgiving, though, is Caviezel.  In The Prisoner, he just proved too dull to be a leading man.  Hopefully he approaches this character differently.  Personally, I would have rather seen Emerson paired again with his Lost co-star Terry O'Quinn as ex-spies in Odd Jobs, but sadly NBC didn't feel the same way; the new regime pulled the plug on that potential Abrams show.

Tradecraft: Only One Spy Show On USA's New Development Slate

Deadline has a report from USA's upfront presentation in New York last week revealing the cable network's current development slate, and, somewhat surprisingly, only one of the shows on the docket is about spies.  While one out of thirteen ain't bad by normal standards, USA is a network and a brand largely based on the success of spy series, like Burn Notice (which set the template for their current slate of successes), Covert Affairs and (going way back) La Femme Nikita. Here's the official synopsis of the one for spy fans to keep their eyes on—one of several recent shows or pilots that seems to owe a bit to Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

HARD COVER (One hour drama)

The best undercover operative can blend in anywhere and be completely unassuming. Then who better to go on assignment than a middle-aged Mom working with a rogue FBI agent? Writer/Executive Producers are Peter Paige and Brad Bredeweg. Executive Producer is Laurie Zaks (Castle). From Universal Cable Productions.

Tradecraft: NBC Renews Chuck; Fox Cancels Human Target, Retools Exit Strategy

With all the major networks' upfront presentations just around the corner, now's when we start to hear about which new pilots have been picked up to series and which current shows have been cancelled.  Fox got the ball rolling yesterday by announcing that Human Target has been cancelled, which is too bad.  It was a fun, light-weight action hour the likes of which you don't see much on TV these days.  It was somewhat surprising that Exit Strategy, a high-profile pilot from hitmakers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (whose spy cred includes Alias, Jack of All Trades, Mission: Impossible III and the current reimagining of Hawaii Five-O) starring Ethan Hawke, was not announced as a pickup... yet.  The Hollywood Reporter reports that that pilot may yet find life at the network after being "retooled." The only problem with that plan, according to the trade, is that pilot director Antoine Fuqua is scheduled to shoot a film this summer. Deadline gets more specific about the retooling, adding that "Fox brass felt the pilot had a lot of action and not too much character in it, so they had been looking to shift the focus on the show." Having loved the Mission: Impossible-like premise but read an early version of the pilot script that I found hugely disappointing, the retooling sounds like a good idea.  (To be fair, I hear that Kurtzman and Orci themselves did a pass on the script subsequent to the draft I read, so that may have addressed some of my issues.)  But I'm not sure if that shift in focus is going in the right direction.  In the initial script, the characterizations were by far the worst part.  Hopefully they're re-building them from the ground up, and not just building up what's already there and already bad.  Guess we'll see.  I'm still curious about this show, and still rooting for it to make it to the air just because I think there's a place for a Mission: Impossible type series on network television.

But the big news (and unexpected) is that, according to a Deadline report, NBC has once again renewed the perennially endangered Chuck! I'm glad to hear it, because I thought Chuck had a great season this year, thanks to a Timothy Dalton injection. Still, it suffered ever declining ratings, so the pick-up comes as a bit of a surprise.  Just like last year, the hour-long spy comedy has been given an initial order of just 13 episodes.  If other shows do poorly (as happened this season), more episodes could be ordered.  Unfortunately, that kind of makes it hard for the writers to plot a full season.  That's why so many of this year's plots (including the Dalton thread) were tied up so neatly in a mid-season episode that seemed like a finale.  Then the poor writers had to struggle to stretch them out further when more episodes were called for.

That just leaves the CW's Nikita as far as on-the-bubble spy series go.  After a less than promising start, it turned out to be one of the best new spy series of the season, so I hope it makes the cut. Pilot-wise, I'm also curious about the J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan Equalizer-meets-Matt Huston show Person of Interest (a millionaire sponsors a former spy to help the helpless in New York) on NBC and Meet Jane on Lifetime.  Deadline reported last month that Meet Jane was not picked up by the cable network in this round, but may still have life left in it after a retooling of its own.  I suspect we'll hear very soon about Person of Interest, since NBC has already started announcing pick-ups.  Fortunately, my favorite spy pilot script of the season, Missing, already has a 13-episode order from ABC and is currently shooting in Europe.

Tradecraft: Jim Caviezel Stars in Yet Another J.J. Abrams Spy Pilot

Lest you fear that there would be no J.J. Abrams-produced spy series on the fall schedule after the failure of Undercovers, take heart: of course there is.  And this time it's created by The Dark Knight co-writer Jonah Nolan, brother (and frequent collaborator) of Christopher Nolan. 

Deadline reports that that Jim Caviezel will star alongside Lost's Michael Emerson.  Hopefully Emerson's unbridled charisma (creepy charisma), which was on full display throughout Lost, will be enough to make up for Caviezel's utter lack thereof, which was on full display throughout the 2009 Prisoner miniseries. 

According to the trade blog, Person of Interest "centers on  ex-CIA agent Reese (Caviezel), presumed dead, who teams up with reclusive billionaire Finch (Michael Emerson) to prevent violent crimes in New York City." So... it's like The Equalizer (or Burn Notice) with unlimited funding?