State of Affairs Series Premiere Review: Politics as Usual

State of Affairs S01E01: "Pilot"

One of the fascinating things about watching the splashier pilots produced by broadcast networks is that they generally reveal what other shows or trends the network brass have been paying attention to as of late. Sometimes you'll see an immediate attempt to replicate the success of a trailblazing series found elsewhere, but more often than not, it takes a couple of pilot cycles for various elements to make their way into the new network projects. It's even more fascinating when shows are developed like Frankenstein's monsters, melding pieces and conventions from a number of current hits.

Excuse the mixed metaphor here, but NBC's State of Affairs is one of those shows, as it's essentially a big smorgasbord of recent TV success stories—a little Scandal, a little Homeland, and a little Blacklist, with some West Wing tossed in for the Sorkin fans in the crowd. Yet, while its pilot episode occasionally struggled to consolidate all of those influences into one coherent package, leading to a few especially bumpy sequences, this sucker is slickly produced, propulsive, and imbued with some solid potential.

First, a quick recap of the show's premise: State of Affairs follows Charleston "Charlie" Tucker (Katherine Heigl, trying to resurrect her troubled career), a CIA analyst whose main task is to deliver the Daily Briefing to the president (Alfre Woodard). Charlie is smart, driven, and good at her job, but she's haunted by a traumatic event that took place a year ago—one that killed her humanitarian fiancé Aaron (Mark Tallman), who also happened to be the president's son. Something isn't quite right with Charlie's memory of the day of the incident, and the heavy drinking and casual sex she's partaking in between shifts isn't helping.

Even in just that logline, you can spot State of Affairs' many influences. Charlie is professionally successful but a bit of a mess personally (and rightfully so), not unlike Homeland's Carrie Mathison and, to a much lesser extent, Scandal's Olivia Pope. While watching the pilot, the prominence of the CIA and the Oval Office and the spotlight on international crime might've reminded you of those shows as well. Meanwhile, the presence of Joe Carnahan behind the camera yielded the sort of slick, efficient sheen that he brought to The Blacklist in its first season. But while there was no hiding any of that ripped-from-other-shows stuff in State of Affairs' series opener, the derivativeness of it didn't bother me that much.

Some of credit for that belongs to Heigl. Much has been made about this show as the key to reviving her career from the graveyard of a thousand bad rom-coms, and while you may dislike "Katherine Heigl, celebrity," the actress does have a screen presence that allows some of those problematic media dust-ups to fall away. I personally prefer Heigl's comedic chops, but State of Affairs presumes that we're invested in her as a primarily dramatic performer, and she was good enough in the pilot. The opening sequence, detailing the deadly and mysterious events that occurred in Kabul a year ago and chronicling Charlie's subsequent struggles in therapy, required Heigl to play Charlie with a nearly unbearable level of incredulity and smarm. After that, though, Heigl and the character settled into a sturdier (and less frustrating) register. She handled the heft of exposition in the "book-building" sequences pretty well, and delivered the proper emotional beats near the end of the episode. If we're keeping up the comparisons, Heigl's debut in the role wasn't Claire Danes- or Kerry Washington-esque, but it was sound nonetheless.

Aside from Heigl, State of Affairs' pilot featured a few semi-compelling elements that I'm certainly intrigued to see play out over the course of 13 to 22 episodes. The central concept, the actual process of building the book for the President's Daily Brief, is kind of captivating. That middle chunk of the episode, with Charlie and the rest of the team—Maureen (Sheila Vand), Kurt (Cliff Chamberlain), and Dashiell (Tommy Savas)—working through possible entries and interacting with additional, separate entities within the CIA hummed along really nicely. The individual characters weren't necessarily memorable on their own, but as a collective, I liked how the episode illustrated the different barriers of communication set up between people who work in the same building, and the kind of crises that have to arise to get them to speak with one another. I don't know how realistic State of Affairs is in representing inner-office protocols and politics at Langley, but that's not necessarily important; it worked, and that's what matters.

The show's ongoing "mystery" has red flags all over it, but it was well-established enough. I watched a couple different versions of State of Affairs' pilot, and if I recall correctly, a few things were tinkered with regarding that second-to-last scene between Charlie and her former coworker (and lover?) Nick. However, it did provide a little context as to why Charlie might not have been gung-ho to try and fail in killing Fatah, and it gave the show's ongoing arcs more to build on. If we'd only seen the final bit with the fiancé maybe not being dead and having tried to kill her, I'd be more skeptical.

Of course, the big problem is that we've seen how these sorts of stories tend to play out, with The Blacklist being a notable recent example. But for now? It's kind of silly, but I'm okay with that.

There were a couple other flourishes in State of Affairs' pilot that simply came down to casting. James Remar blew into the episode for just two scenes as one of Charlie's Secret Service contacts, but he was awesome in those two scenes. For an episode that was pretty stuffy and serious in every other way, Remar's fun, playful energy—particularly his line reading of "We don't waterboard people, General, we just drown 'em—was much-needed. And Alfre Woodard didn't have much to do here as the president, but she was totally fine, as you'd expect.

So, ultimately, while State of Affairs' pilot wasn't especially good, if you look at how bad some of NBC's promotion of the show has been, it could have been so much worse. While it wasn't the kind of single episode that will immediately revive Heigl's career and give NBC another reliable hit on Mondays after The Voice, it's obvious that the show was basically made in a lab to appeal to a broad audience, and I don't know why it wouldn't. It'll be interesting to see what Episode 7 looks like, and the show could certainly use more levity here and there, but at the outset, State of Affairs has enough decent elements in place to become something solid, or better, in the long term. We'll have to wait and see if that happens!

NOTES

– One of the less successful parts of the episode was the introduction of the new guy at the hand of the interim CIA director. Adam Kaufman is totally fine, but that character wasn't much on the page. The fewer possibly nefarious characters involved here, the better.

– I'm sure it took great restraint on Carnahan's part to not have an SUV flip on some suburban highway. Bravo. At least he got the big car accident scene in early, though!

– Charlie's line that she doesn't have to worry about "good" coming from her supposedly irresponsible sex life because she doesn't was so bad. No.

– Okay, who's the mole? There has to be some kind of mole, right? They're all the mole.

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What'd you think of State of Affairs' series premiere? Do you buy Heigl as a CIA operative? Will you be back for Episode 2?