Despite the fact that I had never gotten around to watching the movie (something I fixed after the series ended), I decided to give True Lies a chance when it was turned into a TV series. The premise sounded fun, and I liked creator Matt Nix’s show Burn Notice. Sadly, this take on a spy show left a lot of be desired.
As far as his family and friends know, Harry Trasker (Steve Howey) is a computer salesman. In reality, he’s a top operative for the super-secret Omega Sector, a spy agency. When his wife, Helen (Ginger Gonzaga) accompanies him on a trip to Paris, she learns the truth. However, that turns out to be a good thing for Omega Sector, who quickly recruits her to join the team, which consists of Luther Tenet (Mike O'Gorman), Maria Ruiz (Erica Hernandez), and Albert Gibson, aka “Gib” (Omar Benson Miller). Meanwhile, now both of them have to keep their double life secret from their two kids, Dana and Jake (Annabella Didion and Lucas Jaye).
As Helen starts her training, they also put her out in the field. She and Harry go undercover as married millionaires to take down a weapons dealer. They investigate a hedge fund CEO to find out about his company’s practices. And in a fun nod to the movie, Tom Arnold guest stars as part of a couple of returned operatives who no longer speak but must come out of retirement and both work with the team on a mission.
This is one of the rare cases where the pilot was one of the stronger episodes of a show. I often find the pilots to be a bit slow because of all the exposition they must include so we know what’s going on. And this show’s pilot had to deal with some of that as they had to get Helen involved in Omega Sector. No, it isn’t a complete recreation of the movie, but it does cover some similar ground.
The issue started almost immediately with the second episode. By the fourth, the formula for the show had become very evident, and not in a good way. Now, I’ll admit that many episodic TV shows are formulaic. As long as I’m having fun, I don’t mind, and I often marvel at how the writers pull off twists in the formula or find creative ways to work the formula into the story of the week. That was not the case here. Here it was blatant and never creative or fun.
Of course, part of the problem with the formula was that it came from predictable characters. Harry is an idiot (he’s a husband and father, after all), who needs Helen to set him straight on too many things. In a few early episodes this wasn’t the case, but it became pretty true as the show went along. The times where Helen proved to be wrong about something, in the family or in the field, were few and far between. Meanwhile, Harry was wrong on a fairly regular basis.
Plus, I got tired of them starting each episode with an issue between Harry and Helen. They’re married. Couldn’t they have a more harmonious relationship with only occasional issues?
Then there’s Luther and Maria. While they are part of the team, they had a relationship that is now in the past. Or is it? Their relationship was supposed to provide a funny running subplot. It didn’t. The way they treated each other just grated on me.
So what worked? The action was always great. Yes, it was on a TV budget, but I bought it and I enjoyed it. Some of the humor worked for me. But, honestly, if I didn’t think the show was going to be cancelled after its first thirteen episodes, I wouldn’t have stuck with it. I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did. There was the occasional episode I enjoyed, but that was it. Even the interesting potential new direction they set up in the series finale wouldn’t have been enough to bring me back for a season two if the show had been renewed.
I’m not blaming any of this on the actors. It’s all in how the characters were written.
Hopefully, this show will quickly fade from everyone’s memory. I highly recommend that you skip it and rewatch the movie instead.
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