Damn good first episode. Enjoyed the hell out of it.

Regular guy, wife, two kids, boring job, discovers he's actually the alter ego of a spy for secret gov't agency.

Imagine if Clark Kent didn't know he was Superman.

I've always liked Christian Slater, though.

Same here. Just finished watching it.

Pretty sure this will be a keeper on my DVR.

Yep... Better than I expected. I'll probably keep watching.

christian slater is the poor mans jack nicholson.

I found this quite good as well. I'll tune in for a second episode for sure...

goddammit. I had this on my tivo list for a while but removed it at the last second because for one, all new shows I watch get canceled and two, I watch too much tv as it is.

Trust me, Chris...i think we're reasonably close on TV show taste...you'll dig this.


Watch the first episode online ... Hulu? then set the damn tivo.

Yep definitely worth watching.

I'm glad that Christian has a job, but the whole premise of the show is stupid

What does giving all their agents fake lives achieve for the agency? It just gives them a bunch of needless hoops to jump through and takes away half of their life - it makes no sense.

lol...have you watched a "reality" TV show lately? I don't know about you, but I'm watching TV so I can SUSPEND reality, in cases like this show.

Good "true to life"shows on US networks just don't exist, all Law and Order spinoffs included

Well played sir. Exactly. The 'ultra deep' cover or whatever is pointless, especially considering in the first damn episode a low level bad guy's able to find Slater at his cover house.

Fun to watch but how the premise works for more than a season is beyond me. Sometimes I wonder how they pitch these shows as exsisting for multiple seasons.

yeah i kept wondering this too. i think the main reason for doing it to give that guy who runs the elevator a job. it's a make-work program.

I agree it's kind of an elaborate premise, but they find Slater at his cover house because he switched to his alter during a mission and revealed his cover name.

someone explain how he knows that the terrorist is coming to his home to kill him? He leaves a cd to warn him but how does the Jack Baur Slater know it is gonna happen. IF the agency knew that wouldn't they have stopped it. This show has potential but might be too confusing at times!

Interesting set up, is he schizophrenic?

nah...secret government operation that 'creates' a new personality inside their agent. The new personality lives their life and the 'secret agent' is only brought out of hibernation when he's needed. The secret agent is the original personality and knows about the 'created' personality, but the created guy has no idea about secret agent man.

Kind of like in Buffy where she doesn't know that it's her going out at night causing havoc then. Does the gimmick overtake the show or is it a good thriller as well? I'm guessing it worked well in the first ep judging by the response on here!

only been three episodes. The storyline is that now the gov't agency can't control when the dormant personality wakes up...so it might be secret agent man waking up in the middle of his kid's soccer game...or house dad waking up while trying to defeat a terrorist plot in Bulgaria.

the house dad is slowly learning about his secret agent guy. there's some comedy and works well as a thriller.

I've never seen an episode of buffy, so i can't compare it to that.

I love the way "Edward" is banging his hot wife silly and the alter-ego is all nervous about it...

Wife is played by Madchen Amick, originally in Twin Peaks. Very hot.
Madchen Amick on NNDB

Turn off safe search imo.

so no one knows?

You pull a Hiro go go off into next week to see that 3rd?

I like the scenes with Henry and the shrink (Saffron Burrows) and can't wait for Edward to wake up at one of the appointments.

watch a movie called Dream Lover with her and James Spader. She's naked a bunch and the ending is very good.

Damn, you beat me to it.

I'm not good at teh counting

Fair enough. I'm quite excited about this now, hoping it makes it's way over here.

Here is the question - why did they have to give him an alternative identity. Was it too difficult to have a full time superagent. They only needed a part-timer? Why wouldn't they just have him be the best agent in the world every day?

Ok...who was the chick at the end of the episode? Are we supposed to know her?

It was his psychiatrist.

well goddamn

The only plausible reason that I can come up with is this:

Let's say bad guy tracks good guy to his cover house, like in ep 1, the only way to absolutely insure that no sensitive data is given up under duress is to deny access to that knowledge on the part of the agent. But, the agent needs this knowledge in order to perform his duties. So they create two memory paths in one brain, each working independently of the other and unable to access each other, or that's the intention. But the brain begins to merge the two pathways resulting in the unintended consequence of unreliable control. Given that the cover id has no knowledge of the other, the cover can beat any lie detector, truth serum, or torture in the world and protect the organization and its secrets. Also, any cover story they need to provide to the family becomes the truth as far as the cover identity goes becasue the memories they implant are what actually happened as far as he knows. No need to bluff the wifey then.


This makes it more plausible to me. Federal Government...HEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOO

The part that is ruining it for me is that this agency goes through all this trouble to establish elaborate cover identities but then jeopardizes the whole ball game by over working the agent and wrecking the "stable family homelife" essential for the cover identity to work.

Looks like Edward did get deleted afterall.

My Own Worst Enemy Cancelled.

Too bad, it was a pretty good show. I wonder if TV execs are ever going to come to the realization that they have to commit to a show in order to get viewers to do the same. These days everyone knows there's like a 90% chance that a new show is going to be cancelled in the first two years, so there's no point in getting invested anymore.

What the networks should do with high profile shows is come right out and say "We've ordered a full season of this show because we think it's great, and we believe you will too. If you don't watch it, that's our problem, but every episode will air on this channel on this day at this time".

Their cynicism is crossing over to their viewers and it can't be good for anyone.

This was my opinion also at first. Then after a few weeks I started to wonder where else they could go with the story line-back and forth between Henry and his alter ego. You always knew Henry was going to come out at the worst/most opportune time. Maybe just an old fashioned spy thriller, a la 24, would have been better.

this is a very solid line of thinking and I agree. I didn't watch this show b/c I knew it would be canceled and b/c I watch too much stuff already. Hell, I even think I posted that in this thread.

Buuuut, the thing with hour long dramas, people feel if they miss the first couple of eps, they can't jump on board later on b/c they'll have missed too much stuff. I know I feel that way about some shows. Hell, I was scared to start watching Chuck b/c I felt I missed too much, and that's a goofball show. People can't hop on board with Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's or any other show of the like.

A couple of years ago, like three of my shows got canceled, The Nine, Daybreak and one other. I was so pissed. Thing is, these shows cost so much to make, they need huge numbers to survive.

That's why I like USA doing some of these shows. Burn Notice is a phenomenal show.