A lack of

I missed the premiere of "Intelligence", the "Chuck" knock-off that CBS has decided to air. So I decided to stream the pilot from the CBS site last night, mainly out of curiosity.

It stars the guy who played "Sawyer" from "Lost". While any association with "Lost" generally brings up a rage surpassed only by "Battlestar Galactica", I did enjoy several of the cast and Sawyer was a favorite character, mostly for his being such an unabashed jackass.

So, "Intelligence". Yeah. Um... It really wasn't all that good. In a nutshell: super-spy Sawyer (I can't even be bothered to look up the names of any of the characters) has a chip in his head that lets him tap into computers via wireless signals. So he's sort of the organic opposite of the Machine from "Person of Interest". He's also kind of an idiot and starts the pilot with a hopelessly contrived backstory of a "is she or isn't she?" terrorist wife who is MIA and a weird father-son relationship with the scientist who put the chip in his head.

The writers cut to the normal mid-season story quickly by having said scientist kidnapped in the beginning of the episode and stilted exposition follow.

Cyber-Sawyer is partnered with a tough-but-generically-pretty secret service woman to protect him (and mainly the chip in his head). Meanwhile, the bad guys are doing something predictable that I'll refrain from spoiling. Needless to say, we get a recurring villain or two from the get-go that fit cliches I thought went out-of-fashion some time back.

What are writers going to use as bad guys when North Korea collapses and China's economy is too enmeshed with ours to risk offending their audience? Oh, I think that spoiled something. My bad.

The pilot was disappointing and the cast was lackluster at best. The story was weak tea and the show had a writing quality that matches "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (that is not a compliment). I'm sure it'll do fantastically in ratings.