This Sunday, TNT will premiere its new drama series Agent X with a two-hour series premiere. The series follows an operative known as Agent X who works sensitive cases that neither the FBI nor the CIA can handle.
Agent X's real name is John Case (Jeff Hephner) and he's in the middle of a mission. That mission includes the capture of a man named Nicholas Volker (Andrew Howard). Although Volker gets away, John captures his girlfriend Olga Petrovka (Olga Fonda). Meanwhile, it's the Inauguration Day of newly elected Vice President Natalie Maccabee (Sharon Stone). At the end of the day, her Chief Steward Malcolm Millar (Gerald McRaney) introduces Natalie to John. Natalie can order John at any moment to go on a mission as long as she doesn't use it for her personal agenda. However, the job carries quite a lot of responsibility with it as Natalie cannot discuss this part of her job with anyone. She can't even talk to her boss, President Thomas Eckhart (John Shea), because it gives him plausible deniability. All in all, it's a lot to take in on Natalie's first day in office.
In the pilot episode, John's mission is to find the daughter of FBI Director Stanton (Jamey Sheridan), who has been taken to negotiate Olga's release. Obviously, there is a clock ticking as the captors give the FBI a limited amount of time to release Olga. In episode 2, one of John's old enemies, terrorist Malik Ahmad (Alon Moni Aboutboul), steals a bunch of nuclear warheads and kidnaps a US scientist to activate the weapons of mass destruction. This time, John is not going on the mission by himself, but rather gets help from an uneasy ally. In the meantime, Natalie and Malcolm have to intervene when John's cover is threatened to be blown following the events of the first episode. The series seems to be headed for weekly cases intertwined with serialized elements. There are certainly hints of a big bad, while Olga is destined to be a recurring character. She comes off as an enemy that could potentially turn into an asset.
The two-hour premiere worked really well and was quite enjoyable for me. The premise comes across as a bit silly, but somehow it works fine for me. There is a lot of action in both episodes, so that seems to be what the show is going for. What's interesting is that John has to work under everybody's radar, including the FBI and the CIA. In the meantime, we get some hints about the backstories of the characters, most notably John and Natalie. I hope that will be explored a bit more, but since this is just the beginning of the show I'm OK with the show giving little bits of the story. All in all, it was a fun two hours. TNT has sent the first four episodes for review, so you can expect previews for episodes 3 and 4 as well.
Agent X airs this Sunday, November 8, at 9/8c on TNT. Watch a promo for the show below.
About the Author - Daniel van der Veer
Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Madam Secretary and Quantico. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.
