Re: Covert Affairs (Piper Perabo, new USA series) - Discussion & Spoil
I can think of only two valid motives for someone who is smart and capable to join the CIA rather than the private sector: patriotism or adrenaline-junky-ness. Either you want to put your life on the line for your country or you get off on being allowed to kill people legally. Or both.
I profoundly doubt there's anywhere near as much killing or "putting your life on the line" in real-life CIA work as there is in fiction. Real-life espionage is mostly about sifting through information, surveillance, bribery, blackmail, using deceit to compromise people, things like that. It's about keeping a low profile, and getting into weekly gunfights isn't the way to do that.
I don't believe a powderpuff like Annie would last ten seconds in the CIA. Even if she can do the job, her motivation isn't strong enough to keep her from running away screaming when she's shot at every week.
I don't know where you're getting "powderpuff." The character I saw was extremely smart, capable, adaptable, and quick on her feet. She showed no shortage of courage or ability. Yes, she showed some anxiety and doubt a couple of times, which any sane human being would be expected to do in such trying circumstances, but it didn't impede her performance. So I have no clue why you're judging her in those terms.
For a character to deserve having a story written about him or her, they need to be out of the ordinary in some way.
Not true. There's a long, long tradition in fiction of telling stories about the "everyman" being thrust into an exceptional situation.
That could be their motivation for taking the job, or like Jack Bauer, it could be a manic intensity that makes him incredible at what he does. Not seeing a lot of incredible from Annie yet. Sure, it's just the pilot but I don't remember 24 taking time to "ramp up."
God, the last thing I want to see is anything like
24. Not every show has to be dark and intense and torturiffic. What's wrong with a light adventure romp?
Which raises two questions: why should the audience respect Annie if she's merely bait?
Like I said, many stories are about ordinary people who start out as victims. The story is in how they rise above that role and turn the tables.
And why would she want to stay in this terrifying job where she is being used by cruel, deceptive people, unless she has a much more solid motivation?
Again, I expect that to be a question that the series will explore as it progresses. That's called character development.
I know "producer" is a very vague job description, but to most people, it would mean someone with a great deal of creative input, and a guarantee that some elements that made Jason Bourne movies so great would be evident in Covert Affairs. The advertising is deliberately misleading.
On the contrary, "producer" is a very specific job description. It is Doug Liman's legal, official, contractually determined title on the Bourne movies. It is therefore entirely honest, clear, and accurate to credit him in that way. If someone out there is so unfamiliar with the workings of the industry that they would confuse "producer" with "creator," that's hardly the fault of the people who made the ad.
Now, the ad that cut together Liman's spoken words and artificially juxtaposed "created" with "
The Bourne Identity" was deliberately misleading, but my point was that Liman couldn't be blamed for that. And the other ads crediting him as producer are entirely accurate.
1. Well, in order for me to accept something like the idea that they knew about her and this person of interest and intentionally used her to draw him out by putting her in a situation which would nearly get her killed (that being the motivation for him to reveal himself), I guess that I have to have at least a little bit more than "she admitted to having a vaguely discussed 3 week relationship with an unnamed stranger 3 years ago on some remote island, and that relationship ended badly - so....that MUST be the guy we care about and the best way to draw him out is to put her in mortal danger!", they have to give me a bit more than what they did.
Why are you assuming they didn't know the man's name? I mean, come on, this is the CIA. Surely they ran an extensive background check on Annie as soon as she signed up. It makes zero sense to assume that a single polygraph test was their only source of information about her past. On the contary, as I said, the fact that she was questioned so extensively about that relationship is a pretty blatant clue that the CIA already knew about it and had reason to grill her on it. You just need to read between the lines.
The mortal danger was the thing that drew him out...but they had no way of predicting he would nearly kill her.
Well, obviously they didn't know how any single specific event would go, but I assume they planned to keep her around as long as it took to draw him out. They just got lucky that it happened so soon.
But we are not talking about 'most people' in 'most careers'. We are talking about a spy who is supposedly on a very dangerous secret mission. And the first rule anyone learns about keeping a secret is 'the best way to keep a secret' is to not tell anyone...or even give them a hint that there IS a secret'. And so I'm not buyin' the "I went to ask him about this, just to have an excuse to see him" defense. Unless, of course, she is gonna be the lamest spy ever.
Especially since he clearly knew that she had at least been in job negotiations with the CIA at some point. If he know that, well....that is even more reason to stay the hell away from him when it came to anything related to an actual case. Partly so he wouldn't figure out who she was working for despite his warnings....and partly to keep him safe from the people who people who were shooting at her!
Well, she was told that it was a bad idea to go see him. Why is it so objectionable that a character who's explicitly defined as a novice is making mistakes? Hell, a few days ago someone was complaining that they'd hate it if she were portrayed as too perfect and unbeatable.
And I stand by what I said before. This is fiction, and fiction follows dramatic rules that often require contrived situations. One factor is the need to convey information through spoken dialogue since the audience can't read a single character's internal thoughts. Another factor is the need to set up any characters who may have a role to play in the series as a whole. My suspicion is that the professor was introduced here because he's going to be a recurring player in the series.
Those have to be a dime a dozen in the CIA, without pulling someone out of basic training. Good grief, *I* could speak as much Russian as they showed in this episode! And she wasn't even fluent enough to know (or be capable of looking up!) an Estonian colloquialism, for cryin' out loud! She had to go talk to her old Russian professor for THAT? I could have looked that up, and I only had 2 years of Russian! 
