UPDATES NBC Cancels New Drama ‘Undercovers’
An insider gave me this guidance about what went wrong with Undercovers, a show that NBC massively promoted and yet was still rejected by audiences: “Many things. Mostly, what was meant to be a throwback lark of a show felt trivial to people. It felt flimsy and not compelling, partially because it was designed as a stand alone, non serialized show. Perhaps the stories lacked deeper interest and urgency. We tried to embrace a familiarity of form, but the public obviously didn’t want something so familiar. Unfortunately we never got an audience from the get-go; our abysmal recent rating wasn’t even one point lower than our premiere number. We just should have done better. It is a bummer to be sure. NBC did the best they know how. We feel responsible for the failure, though. But damn, it sure would be easier to blame the network!”
JJ is one of the best guys out there, but doing a show without any serial elements or mythology is nonsensical when that’s your biggest talent. It’s like Jordan playing hockey,
Or baseball.
boris is a pretty male model but he can NOT act. and he had ZERO chemistry with the also not so great british actress.
Amen! My thoughts from the first episode.
Sorry but that’s nuts. It’s borderline delusional. Serialized shows are a much bigger risk. LOST scored but was the exception and shows that try to replicate its success tend to bomb bigtime (I’m talking to you, THE EVENT)
Conversely, standalone shows — particularly ones about “Good Guys vs. Bad Guys” like the CSI and NCIS franchises, and the LAW & ORDERs and HAWAII 5-O, not to mention PSYCH and BURN NOTCE have all caught on in a big way.
FRINGE is on the fucking fringe, ratings wise.
Why all the goddamn hate for “old school” standalone shows when there is clearly such an appetite for them?
The truth is, I liked a lot about it… But what I liked was the aesthetically pleasing leads and seeing good old Gerald McCraney back on screen. Other than that, the show gave me nothing new. Nothing fresh. We’ve all seen “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” We’ve seen “True Lies.” Even “Alias” (another Abrams show) and a million others. So who cares about their catering business. Why do we need another nerdy white sidekick (aka “Marshall” from “Alias,” or “Benji” from “M:I III,” yet another Abrams project). Maybe it needed to be serialized… “Fringe” has turned out to be an imminently watchable show because it’s different.
That’s what “Undercovers” needed to be. Different. Fun. Not a retread of “Let’s work out some of our marital issues. But first! I shall dispatch of this baddy after you walk by while distracting him with your hotness.”
Shame though. I kinda liked that Abrams theme song too.
You are absolutely right. I so desperately wanted to like this this show, and I loved the leads in it; but, ultimately, it just came off as tepid – I never felt that it was destination TV.
I watched the first episode and would like to sue for the loss of lifetime.
Just stupid TV. Actors not bad, but the story. OMG. Take a plane, go to Russia, find the guy, lalalalaaa. Maybe in the 1980’s a nice plot. Just plain stupid. Also the so “cute” back and forth between super woman und super husband. The idiot sidekick. If they only would have been former lawyers and not secret agents….
Story, character. Character, story. When people like the characters and the stories are compelling, they watch. When they’re not watching, they don’t like the characters and stories or don’t like them as much as they like what’s on another channel. This clear attempt to do an African American Mr and Mrs Smith did not succeed because it did not have the interesting backstory and real life scandal of M&M S – that would have tanked too without Pitt and Jolie. The campy spies is so Man from UNCLE. Why didn’t Abrams get it?
Like they say, Nobody Knows Nothin!
Sheesh, where do I start? I guess for me it just felt forced. Honestly, I was hoping it did well but it just didn’t seem to grab me. What I do find interesting is that my neighbors are actually a husband/wife spy tandem that often get caught up in the trappings of high level espionage.
I will say this, I thank the Gods of TV that the synopsis never contained the phrase “as they manage their day to day lives while balancing” That seems to be the trend now…
eh, its 2 in the morning…
The show stank is what happened. And it stank because it featured nothing new at all, other than the supposed hook of black leads (in an otherwise VERY white show– who was that supposed to appeal to and why?). The stories were flat and although Mbatha-Raw is undeniably hot, both leads kind of sucked too. They brought nothing to the table. Add *casting* to the list of nails in this coffin. Though I thought the “nerdy idiot” assistant Ben Schwartz was funny. Abrams has gotten a whole lotta mileage from limited successes. Hopefully his 15 minutes are about up.
After tuning into the first episode I saw no reason to continue. I had seen this story done a million times before and in much more clever ways. One of the biggest problems I had with it was how EASY spying seemed to be. None of the obstacles seemed overly challenging, the leads never broke a sweat and they seemed more boring as spies than as caterers! There was no motivation behind why they got back in the game (I know they mentioned something about a friend in trouble but that seemed trite). Aside from being tired and a bit bored they had a fairly charmed life (theyre biggest problem was they paid theyre caterers too much-I mean come on). Overall it was nothing more than “watchable”; maybe something you turn on when theres nothing else to do.
Agreed, Stephanie.
I tuned in, and just found the show really uninteresting.
And I realized, reading your post, that I almost would have watched the show if it had just been about the two of them as caterers, with the flaky sister, and Gerald McCraney popping in occasionally as their banker or something.
But the spy stuff was really dumb and it felt like the producers thought if they just put pretty people on the screen, folks would tune in. The male lead, especially was nice to look at, but wasn’t that interesting to watch. Sorry, but character & story are important. If the stories or characters had been interesting, I would still be watching.
Wasn’t this show called Hart to Hart in the early 80’s.
I was thinking the same thing. Except Hart to Hart was great.
I was thinking “Scarecrow & Mrs. King”. But that at least had a challenge to it. It would have been much better if, say, ONE member of the couple was NOT a spy but had some indispensable instincts or knowledge, and kept being pulled in.
OR if there was a real threat or urgency towards the couple.
There was literally no threat. Two overachieving, hot experts get to fly to exotic lands and do interesting things, before they come back to save their “struggling” catering business with award-winning chefs in some huge San Francisco loft or whatever.
Didn’t buy it, didn’t care.
I’m with Tim. I watched the first show and couldn’t get to the end. Really didn’t care what happened, because it was written by the numbers. First premise, that a young 20ish couple would “retire” (leave) from the CIA and start a catering business?….not likely. How about if they got FIRED from the CIA? And the lead actress, couldn’t pronounce her name, she was strictly eye candy and couldn’t act. By that I mean, she was forgettable. No personality. Again, they needed an older couple and they needed a woman with sex appeal and toughness, ala Viveca Fox. And then to send them overseas to crack security codes….not likely.
I am going to somewhat disagree with you there about Ms. Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I do think that she has the actings chops to be around for a good while. I do agree that she is eye candy, however, in my opinion, she does have some acting ability. Now, with Boris, at best, at least to me, he is okay, but not someone I would put in a lead role, at least not yet.
My 1st reaction was mild outrage because I’m a diehard Chuck fan so for NBC to try to make another “spy show” while still being wishy washy towards Chuck -not even ordering a full season at 1st, as per usual- felt like kind of a slap in the face. But that didnt stop me from giving the show a chance, especially with J.J. Abrams involved. Plus, I really seem to love even the most recent spy shows. For example I love Covert Affairs, & even though Burn Notice is not a new show, I think together they make an important point: it IS possible to have 2 “spy shows” on 1 network w/o making viewers feel like they’re watching even remotely the same thing. Plus, USA has barely a handful of original shows & they still pulled it off, making it look effortless. They even had 2 funny, quirky detective shows w/heart back to back when Monk & Psych were on together & they each stood alone, again making it look effortless. So w/this I tried to care, really, but I didnt. Honestly, in the end it just felt like nothing special.
Well I have to start by saying at least JJ Abrams and NBC gave these actors a shot but lets be honest, it was an uphill battle from the gate. The unfortunate thing is this will serve as an example of why not to sign off on shows with black leads but was this REALLY a black show to begin with? Or was it a case of we milked this cow dry so let’s see if we can package it differently and fool the viewers?
Where do I start… Boris Kodjoe lacks the fan base to carry a show like this. I think the ladies were crazy about him 10yrs ago but Idris Elba would’ve been a better choice.
The ugly truth is mainstream is reluctant to tune in to shows or films with black leads for whatever reasons and black audiences are increasingly less inclined to tune into shows conceived, produced, directed and written by people who can’t capture the subtle nuances and “feel” that makes it seem authentic.
There’s a simple formula of INCLUSIVENESS that has been proven to work. I believe if projects were more integrated on camera AND especially behind the scenes they’d stand a far greater chance of success. But what do i know? I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of “experts” on what works with black audiences pointing out flaws in my argument. lol
The failure of this show is due to lack of creativity in conceptualizing (seen it all before, and better), writing (snooze) and casting (the leads are boring.)As for the “ugly truth” you mention, I agree. But THIS show is not the appropriate choice for that criticism. The writing and the ideas (or lack thereof) behind it sucked. And it would have sucked had it starred two “white” leads, too.
Your comment: “The ugly truth is mainstream is reluctant to tune in to shows or films with black leads” is fatally flawed Curtis. Have you even seen films with black leads? There are many that have been and will be successful.
This show as others have said is more about story than ethnicity. So stop the black fear mongering.
@wallyworld
“black fear mongering?” Do you work in the industry? If so you are being extremely delusional at best or flat out disingenuous. And if you’re not in the business then your ignorance is on full display.
If story alone is the problem then please give me an example of a TV show (since that’s the topic not FILMS)not called the Cosby Show with consistent, enduring MASS APPEAL. “The Wire” was critically acclaimed but the #’s never quite matched the hoopla. Now what else? Let me guess, it was the story lines. right?
Stop using buzz words you picked up from Fox TV because it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.
there was this little hit called the cosby show back in the 80s that refutes your argument. i’m afraid your “ugly truth” is ummm, not true.
@Truth
I provided several reason why I believe the show didn’t work but of course the “truth” made you feel ashamed as it should have. The Cosby Show was an anomaly, not to mention 25 years ago. I’m sure you have equally good “truths” as to why budgets for “urban” films rarely exceed 20 million and why there’s so many black agents, entertainment journalists, managers, working writers, actors, directors and producers in Hollywood. They’re practically everywhere in this business aren’t they Mr./Mrs. “Truth?”
Ugly is an understatement.
The idea of a truly black show with a couple of black spies in African American culture, then going overseas and trying to infiltrate other cultures to get information for an America which is more than occasionally racist to black people but which is still their country would be far, FAR more interesting than these overachieving buppies and they’re day-job catering business.
Abrams is soooooo overrated.
Well this is his first mis-step. I’d say he has a very impressive track record so far. Perhaps his mistake was in trying to make a show or movie that *wasn’t* that weird, for once.
It’s a shame, that a show with a (FOR ONCE!) diverse lead cast was given such poor writing and lack of story and cheap format. Creators FAIL.
Agreed. It was like it was left to the casting department to give this shot one last chance to be interesting. They did the best they could, and I give the actors credit. But that wasn’t near enough to overcome the concept and the writing.
Maybe the concept started out better, and was squeezed out of the show by the time it got past the focus groups and the meddling execs. Or maybe Abrams wanted to try his hand at “normal-ish” and see if he could do it.
In any case, fail.
too bad
Okay so nobody wants to bring up the big flaw in the premise because it would be too un-PC – so I will have a go – the point of being an undercover spy is to infiltrate some level of a society or a bureaucracy to take care of business. And if you are really a US spy that probably means blending into somewhere in Eastern or Western Europe, Asia, maybe Latin America. And there have to be pretty limited ways where Black/African American spies won’t stick out physically from the people around them. There can only be so many contrived ways to put them on the scene where it wouldn’t be important for them to “blend” and soon you are starting to bore or aggravate your audience.
Sorry for the lead actors because personally I think they were great and if they had been plugged into another profession – competing or feuding news anchors, crime writers, soap stars I think it may have been a hit – but spies?
That’s sounds like an easy argument to make but it’s actually just facile. Because white people have a hard time conceiving of non-whites in places and positions that don’t fit their own internal narrative they deem such depictions as unrealistic. A family friend was an Army Intelligence officer stationed in Italy during WWII. There were black Marines on Pelelu. But to look at anything from Private Ryan to the otherwise excellent BoB and the Pacific all the way back to Rat Patrol you’d think black people weren’t allowed to leave America before 1939. I imagine there have been and will be members of the clandestine service that don’t look like Tom Cruise or George Clooney. As to whether we’ll see that reality depicted in popular entertainment in the future, time will tell.
I have to agree totally. Sexy black spies posing as caterers? Not saying it couldn’t happen but we’re talking about marketing. Ridiculous premise but if your going to do it, why develope & package it in the same glossy, generic way? I was disappointed but I did dvr it just to watch the female lead. First two episodes she had me hooked. There are several nuances to blast but ultimately I would’ve liked it more if it were darker/grittier. They always looked like the Cosby’s on vacation during a recession. Would’ve failed with white actors too, btw.
Your comments are all over the place. Following your logic then one could stick a white spy in asia, pakistan and it wouldn’t work just as sticking a black spy in sweden. The fact is that in today’s world a black spy with the correct features blends in more in areas that matter to DOJ.
Wow. This post pretty much indicates the challenge to getting beyond stereotypes. Black folks can’t blend in in a European or Latin American setting? Wow. Have you ever travelled? Did you know the two leads in real life are not African-American? Boris Kodjoe is African-German and Gugu Mbatha-Raw is African-English. Anyway–personally I loved the show and wished it had been given a chance to find it’s footing.
Wow, you’ve just exposed your ignorance, Mariah D. You actually think black people can’t blend in Europe and Latin America? You have obviously never been to either continent. Such provincialism.
Now the networks won’t cast an African American in the lead of a show for another hundred years. Yeah, “Undercovers” was ground breaking with the casting, but they failed on every other level. Kinda’ like Barack Obama being president. Aye, this isn’t a black thang — yeah — well, it kinda’ is. First, black people invented cool, we exude cool, and it’s emulated by people all over the world. If you doubt what I’m saying — remember when rap music was just something cool black people did on street corners in the ghetto? Now it’s a billion dollar business — ask Jay-Z. My point is, people like cool, including the 18 to 45 demographic. And, I’m here to tell you, there was nothing cool about this show.
The show didn’t have a lead-in to build an audience off of, so the pilot had to be the bomb, and let word of mouth bring the audience. The pilot was hot garbage. Yes, it opened with a stunning action sequence, directed by JJ. Incredible. Problem is, it didn’t involve the stars of the show — who happen to be black. They would have never done that to the white lead of a show, he would have been in the spectacular cold opening of the show. Wait a minute, he was “Undercovers.” Like I said, it is kind of a black thang — than the ball just rolled down hill from there. Boris Kodjoe is suppose to be a secret agent right, but he has a fight on a roof with another spy — Boris is six-something tall, with six percent body fat, and he barely beats the guy on the roof in a fist fight. Really? Seriously? And to top it off, Boris fainted after the fight. Wow, that’s a character I want to watch every week.
The neutering doesn’t stop there. Boris’ wife, was once sexually involved with another (white) spy they’re trying to save — who happen to be the same guy in the spectacular cold opening. Which becomes a running story line throughout the rest of the series, where his wife is hugging the guy she usta’ sleep with, and he’s making comments about having slept with her to Boris with no repercussions. Forget the black thang for a second, I don’t even know any man that would go for that — let alone the lead of a show. They’d only ask a black man to do something that stupid. They’re not going to ask Logan Marshall-Green to stand around and watch his wife hug a black guy and listen to him talking about having slept with her. And, they wonder why no one watched. Ha.
@ Andre “Co-sign!”
Before producing any show, know thy demographic.
I for one was actually hoping this show would get better. The issues that I had with it mostly came from the fact that there was this big mystery as to why these two spies retired in the first place and why they were being reactivated, but absolutely no allusion as to what that might be. It gets tedious when you know there’s something, but you’re left hanging…for what? Okay, I get the mission of the week, that worked well enough on Alias, which I loved, but making this entire series a bunch of self-contained episodes gets boring quick. What makes Alias, Lost, and Fringe great shows is the fact that we’re at least privy to bits of the greater mystery.
It sounds like this statement is coming from inside Bad Robot (as opposed to the studio, WBTV) and you have to admire the whole “stand-up-and-take-responsibility” tone of it, except that it’s meaningoess without attribution. In all honesty, NBC, and particularly Angela should get the blame for this one because they got the show in a bidding war and we all know it would have looked a lot different at CBS or ABC which have completely different executives and philiosophies when it comes to casting, marketing, scheduling and development. EVERY call NBC made on this one was off-base. This was a $30-40 million bet for NBC that filled up JJ and Bryan Burke’s pockets but was a giant embarassment gor everyone else.
Frankly it should have sounded alarm bells at NBC the second they found out JJ would be producing the next Mission Impossible filmmat the exact same time this show was launching. Would Undercovers have been a bigger hit with M:I 4 stars Josh Holloway and Paula Patton as the lead couple? Undoubtedly.
Does anyone else remember last spring when the pilot was hard to get a hold of…but DHD was filled with almost daily insidr buzz about how great it was?
In my view, when you are going to create a show that revolves around a male and female lead, especially leads that are supposed to be hot, sexy marrieds, then you better make sure their chemistry registers. I have no issues with either actor, but they just didn’t generate much spark or heat with each other. Which made the central relationship of the show dead boring.
The “throwback, lark” concept works quite well for USA Network’s spy shows, and they are only very lightly serialized. So I don’t really but that explanation.
I’m sorry, but I enjoy this show and if they can attempt to forced fed that crappy assed Friends down people throats, then NBC can give this show another shot.
Yes, visually pleasing, but I enjoy the characters. There’s ALWAYS going to be a sidekick, geeky or not, and I like Hoyt. He’s cute and I think he was/is starting to come into his own. I’d like to see more of the sister and the catering business, but that’s not necessary to me.
I think you have to give the show a chance to grow and then the issues you people are having would be null.
NBC is gonna screw up again. This is why I stick to cable.
When is Leverage coming back?
It was all in the execution. Modern Family could sound trivial and hackneyed in a log line and we would all groan. Instead it is a revelation in terms of the casting and how it plays the relationships.
It manages to be slightly subversive and traditional at the same time. It is a lovely diversion from todays world and yet says things about family that haven’t been said on TV. This need to take and communicate a POV about the American family is the spine of the show.
Old and new. There is chemistry to the writing and with the cast.
Undercovers is retro and new. Has familiar TV elements and a new spin just like Modern Family. Just not subversive or hip enough. I’m not sure what Josh Reims wanted to say.
This show failed in its execution. Can’t blame the color of the actors skin.
The writing, the concept, the chemistry of the cast, it was not subversive in any way at all and that was a mistake.
It’s interesting. I know and have enjoyed the work of many of the actors on MF but I really have no interest in seeing it. I’m sure it’s as good as everyone says but I’m not interested because it seems like just more of the same. Every show is about quirky, dysfunction suburbanites and their unique neuroses. MF is no different just a fresh coat of paint (The Gays have adopted? How progressive!). Relating to UC it was more of the same with a fresh coat of paint, so to speak, but underneath it was the same old same old. I.e., the show was obviously just about two characters that I wouldn’t be interested in otherwise but am supposed to care about just because they are black (and attractive) but they weren’t authentic so it would appear, hence failure to hook an audience and cancellation. Someone made the point that the show was likely conceived and controlled by people ill-suited to make the characters as cast relate-able. The description of the pilot seems to bare this out.
FunkDubious
Just as Little Miss Sunshine was fresh to movies so Modern Family is to TV. Don’t deprive yourself of the fun. There is so little to be had on TV.
This is a very political answer, and it’s frankly off the mark. The non-serialized element does NOT explain the bad premiere rating. Clearly, the show itself just never clicked as a draw.
The talent’s a big factor. You have two fairly low-level actors with impossible to pronounce names and virtually no recognition toplining a show. Also, for a show with two minority leads, it was not promoted as a show that would click with minority audiences at all. You have to go one way or the other. If you’re making a show for rich white people, it’s tough to draw with two black leads, especially unknown ones. May sound racist, but it’s correct.
The concept also just wasn’t much of a draw. The Mr. & Mrs. Smith pilot did not get picked up. Knight & Day bombed by Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz standards. Why would this do well?
The plots in the second and third weeks seemed to be EXACTLY the same. One week the bad guys kidnap a brilliant scientist who can make a super-bomb, micro-sized. The next week the bad guys kidnap a brilliant mathematician who can super-hack into the CIA database. Really? Kidnap the genius two weeks in a row? It seemed very lazy.
For a show that was well-publicized, supposedly, I wondered why I didn’t see the leads in more magazines and talk shows, because they are both so good-looking. Then again, maybe it was just too boring for anyone to care.