By TANIA PHILLIPS
State of Affairs
Channel Seven, 9pm Thursdays.
Starring: Katherine Heigl and Alfre Woodard
THE biggest drawcard to this show is probably it’s biggest liability.
It is meant to be a tense drama about CIA-analyst working for the president and is fast-paced and interesting with characters coming from everywhere.
Female CIA-analyst Charleston Tucker (Katherine Heigl) assembles President Roberta Payton’s (Alfre Woodard) daily briefing – the list of the most-urgent security issues facing the nation. This is a task that requires moral and political decision-making by her team of analysts. But Charleston is more than just the president’s advisor – she was also almost the president’s daughter-in-law but her fiance was killed in a terrorist attack in front of her. So she’s nicely emotionally scarred and has a strained relationship with her boss (the most powerful woman in the American world).
Think somewhere between Homeland, Alias and Covert Affairs and add a touch of Days Of Our Lives and you have State of Affairs.
It’s nice to see a strong but flawed female character in the centre of intrigue and international espionage.
Except, well, she isn’t.
This is a star vehicle for Katherine Heigl and you get the feeling if she actually got blood on her designer clothes or broke a nail she’d dissolve into tears. Heigl also serves as one of the producers along with her mother Nancy.
And unfortunately while at times she puts in a strong performance she’s also the biggest problem with this whole show – it is hard (but I suppose not impossible) to buy Katherine Heigl, with her Barbie doll pout, and high-end clothes as a tough CIA operative.
Far more convincing and compelling is Alfre Woodard’s President Roberta Payton – if this program is not picked up for a second season maybe the writers should consider spinning her off into her own show. She is channelling Mary McDonnell’s president from Battlestar Gallactica – strong but with enough vulnerability to make her human enough to believe.
Chuck in James Remar (Dexter) as Charleston’s mentor and Nestor Carbonell (Lost) as a CIA director and the show is OK – not brilliant, but mostly watchable.
But let’s face it you’re probably going to sit there the whole time wondering who designed Heigl’s outfits rather than be totally invested in the “intrigue”.
– Tania Phillips
