Most viewers will likely be attracted to this Paramount+ spy series on the basis of its knockout cast led by Michael Fassbender, but those with international TV fandom will quickly spot its true colors as a shallow, big-budget remake of the superior five-season French series, The Bureau (aka Le Bureau des Legendes). Humorously, The Bureau is also currently streaming on Paramount+, making comparison effortless for any enterprising subscribers.
Buy The Agency: Season OneAs in the original series, the story revolves around a special agent returning to the fold after six years deep undercover in a foreign land. In this update, the fold is the London Station of the CIA, a confusing locale choice that finds the Irish/German Fassbender affecting an adept but soulless American accent in a British setting. After so long in the field, his loyalties are in question, especially when he reconnects with his problematic lover (Jodie Turner-Smith) from his Ethiopian sojourn. She’s affiliated with some bad African hombres, and even though Fassbender’s character, codenamed “Martian,” wasn’t playing her for intel during their initial time together, he’s now forced to choose between her and his career.
Meanwhile, a junior agent named Danny (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) is learning the field ropes, guided by her office-bound minder, Naomi (Katherine Waterston). Danny’s eventual hazing, where she’s held captive and tortured by an undercover fellow agent to test her resolve, is a clear fumble compared to the original series, with all drama quickly fizzling out after precious little buildup.
Other big players are Richard Gere as the head of London Office, rarely seen but making his presence known via bursts of dramatic dialogue, along with Jeffrey Wright as his deputy, and John Magaro (Past Lives, Köln 75) as a neurotic mid-tier analyst usually bungling his assignments. Waterston and Magaro are criminally underutilized, raising the question of why they’re even in this project, as they both have had much greater prior successes with seemingly little to gain here other than a recurring paycheck. Conversely, Lightfoot-Leon is given too much time to shine, and isn’t up to the task, especially when surrounded by so many esteemed veterans.
The series looks great and has a fantastic cast, but something is lacking in the writing department. Character motivations are unclear in the early episodes, and even the season’s central plot device is somewhat hazy and uninvolving, focusing only sporadically on an agent in enemy hands who must be rescued before he gives up sensitive intel. The real action is Fassbender’s reintegration into the station, with the writers toying with the question of his true loyalty right up to the end. The series shows promise that reportedly pays off in the more well-regarded second season, but this debut season is a bit of a meandering slog only redeemed by the top-tier acting talent.
The DVD set spreads the season’s ten episodes across three discs housed in a standard case with slipcase. No bonus features are included. The standard definition video quality is as expected, with excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 sound compensating somewhat for the media format’s technical video limitations. As with fellow big-budget Paramount+ series MobLand, the DVD set is unfortunately the only U.S. physical media option, with no Blu-ray on the horizon at this time.
