Americans on FX

This show can only be on FX or premium cable channels. This would have been pretty great but for the (see spoiler section below). It might be salvageable. The 80s era stuff is done well, not too cheesy.

NB: I haven't seen Homefront, so I can't compare the two counter-intelligence/molehunt shows.

There is one kind of annoying coincidence and an associated implausible action, but it's TV.

The show's sexual politics are certainly problematic.

Had the same problem with that aspect of it. On the other hand I was expecting the familial drama stuff to drag it down more than it did. I get why it's a part of the premise but I find when you have a part genre / part "TV drama shit" concept - be it sci fi + drama, spy + drama, police + drama, whatever, it's very easy to get bogged down with mediocre ponderous tv drama.

Aside from what Jeff mentioned the only other thing I looked askance at was the action sequences. I hope those aren't that common.

I'll give it another couple of episodes, but I don't think I enjoyed it enough to watch regularly. The performances were OK, but the plotting was just a bit ridiculous.

Fuck FX for their stupid arbitrary pilot length. I would have watched this Saturday or Sunday if it weren't a little over an hour and a half. As it stands, I've seen the first part several times.

I don't really have that big of a problem with the sex angle at the point that I hopped out (I think right after Michael Rhys listens to some recordings, which could end up turning my opinion, depending on how it plays out) - at least, not from Keri Russel's angle. Now, I think the guy at the top of the episode goes WAY too big with the reaction (unless we are supposed to believe that Felicity invented oral sex in 1981), and I'm not in love with the sort of toss-away attitude with which the second bit is thrown into the mix (I doubt that she'll be carrying the consequences of this around with her - if she does, I could change my opinion, but it seems like there just won't be any room), but I don't think that the basic idea is unacceptable, even if the execution was less-than-ideal (the intent was, I suspect, to demonstrate that her training was uniquely awful, and this was probably the most succinct way to get outside of the whole universe of awful things that wouldn't sufficiently impress within the context of a special operative's training). There are other ways to get to the same point, but none that are as compact, and given that the pilot is already half an hour longer than it's supposed to be (based on my recording, anyway), I can forgive the necessity of cutting a corner.

The show can go fuck itself for forcing me to buy the rest of the Classic Lineup Fleetwood Mac catalog, though. I was happy with just the eponymous album and Rumours, but now that I've crossed the halfway point with Tusk I'm going to have to get the rest of them. Blow me, show. We'll see if I can actually watch the whole thing in a row tonight (will depend primarily on whether I end up starting up Far Cry 3) and maybe that will completely change my perspective. For now, I'm tentatively enthusiastic, based on a third of what's available.

MTV video from the 80s (including baton twirling Stevie Nicks) mocks you.

Okay. Finally got it all processed.

I extra like Matthew Rhys. More than Keri Russell, the pilot, at least, was basically his. I also like that the show isn't shying away from the sheer inevitability of defection. It has to happen before the series is over. I'm not entirely sure it doesn't have to happen before the first season is over. It's already '81, so that's only one more year for Brezhnev, then some chaos, then Gorbachev starts overseeing the general downfall of Soviet Union in '85. Their economy was already firmly lodged in the crapper by the point the show starts. If this show expects me to seriously believe that these two aren't morons of the highest order, this needs to be an ongoing and somewhat pernicious concern. It's also a hell of a lot more interesting if one or both of them eventually turns, though not necessarily right away. And if they go even four years, with the age at which they elected to pick the boy, he's definitely going to outgrow any pace-slowing that the show tries to do.

I don't much like the bald contrivance of Agent Stark Snooperman or whatever his name is moving in literally right next door. I'm not the most tremendous fan of Felicity being so thoroughly dead set and dedicated to the Motherland, to the point where she's obviously arguing in defense of the Soviet Space Program at the breakfast table.

As I suspected, it looks as though the show is ditching the fallout of the whole sex crime thing, which is unfortunate but not particularly surprising. Like I said before, there were other ways to get to that point, but none that would have been as concise, so....ehhh....television. So long as it doesn't keep going back to the well, I can live with it. I'm sure there will still be plenty of sex-as-espionage-tool, but that's kind of par for the course with anything spy related these days. I'm particularly looking forward to Margo Martindale (Mags Bennett) showing up at some point this season, hopefully dong as well for Yost in this show as she did on Justified (although he's only a producer on this one - not the showrunner).

It's good enough. A little bit slow for a drama on FX, but I suspect that it will pick up the pace in episodes that aren't given the freedom to just flop down all over their timeslot and the next like a fat.

I didn't even think about that. First, KGB Chairman Andropov for 15 months, then Chernenko 13 months: that ought to play havoc with the Soviet agents.

And probably some more defections.

Wife and I really liked it. The husband was fantastic throughout.

I really like how he plays the caring father role and she is the slightly annoyed, short on patience, slightly out of touch mother. Much like my wife and Me.

They missed a chance to use "Who Can It Be Now?" at the maid's house.

Bah, Mac has been meh since Peter Green left.
This show any good? Need some new tv to watch.

I think it's pretty good but since it hasn't caught fire immediately FX will kill it after one season.

Agreed. It's too entertaining to not be canceled.

I can't decide whether weird, unexplained character details are a good thing or a bad thing, but I find it incredibly odd that Keri Russell was wearing socks to bed with the rest of that getup. I also think that the CIA, FBI, NSA, and whatever else are a bunch of incompetent idiots if they can't track these people down, if only on the basis of how much hair and product they have to buy. The inside of their supply closet must be like the dumpster behind a barber shop.

Ratings wise it actually debuted alright, but I won't lie - this show dropped pretty hard in its second episode (though I haven't seen the fully rolled-up numbers for the entire night). I'm honestly not surprised. It's a show about a goddamn Russian sleeper cell wherein they are the heroes. That's going to be a little bit of a hard sell, and that's also why I suspect that some sort of defection before the first season is out is inevitable (above and beyond any historical concerns). That said, it'll at least run its full season, same as Terriers, and the call will be made then. FX doesn't pick up shows that they don't like, and they tend not to give up on them without cause. I mean, jesus - Powers is still being worked over, and it's already had a busted pilot, a second run of scripts, and the entire cast is going to have to be replaced. If nobody watches it, it'll have to go, but FX is one of the networks that I'd trust the most. John Landgraf is a smart dude.

The latest episode wasn't bad. I could live with a season of this. I do wish that they'd pick a different night, though - 10:00 on Wednesdays is hard for me to slot in with the rest of everything.

Edit: FX is repping the Live+3 numbers pretty hard. I should note that every network always reps their numbers extra hard in the press release where they talk about their numbers, but it's something positive, anyway.

I loved this last episode. No pulling of the punches here. The OD, the whole thing about how they were not that way in the beginning but now yes.. the black panther. All good.

Elizabeth is turning out to be a pretty entertaining character so far this season. She can pry secrets loose with the just power of her little finger. She's rocking a secret affair with a black panther because he's been down with the cause from day one. She's willing to follow orders to the point of potential nuclear war. Oh, and she's a stone-cold killer. Che Guevara has a picture of her on his t-shirt. Lindsey Buckingham is not bad either.

Second season order in.

This show will forever have my respect for having actual Russian actors speaking actual freaking Russian (with subtitles!) instead of the typical "let me blather some gobbledegook and pretend it's Russian" bullshit pulled by show after show.

I find it interesting how technology has forced shows that take place in modern times to make up silly contrivances like super-encryption and military hardware in order to create tension. In this show, getting a piece of information and then delivering creates a tension because you know they can't just use a disposable cell phone to text or e-mail some important shit.

Yeah, spy stuff is much cooler when it's low-tech.

On the other hand, aside from Elizabeth's jeans, I can't really tell that they're in the early 80s. I'll chalk that up to budget and possibly even creative intent, since we don't want to be jarred into being reminded all the time that this isn't 2013.

Were you born after 1985? Having been a teenager at this time I can tell you the clothes, the cars, the house decor are all spot on. :)

Yo - I grew up in the eighties. This show super looks like the eighties. I mean, my earliest memories are from the mid-eighties, and since we were a military family we didn't really have the cash for fashions to filter down for a few years, and this looks exactly like what I remember from the base in Clovis and jives with the pictures. Granted - I was just a stupid baby and I could easily be imagining some of these things, but I'm sold anyway.

I actually found the latest episode baffling in a very enlightening way. If Barack Obama were shot tomorrow, the furthest worry from my mind would be any sort of a coup. America has pretty well proven over the course of a couple hundred years that it's fairly okay at handing power off between administrations, even in the case of assassination, and a remarkably short list of successful military overthrow of the standing government. That the Russians just leaped directly to that conclusion and started scrambling everybody in preparation for some sort of guerrilla war is just delightfully incomprehensible to me. I'm also quite enjoying most of the leads - Rhys moreso than Russell, but even the kids (well, two of them - the youngest in Sleeper Family doesn't have a discernible personality yet) don't make me want to claw my eyes out of my face.

It seems inconsistent to me. It could be that it's just that I was unaware of, say, Nina's hairstyle and look when she was first introduced being pitch perfect 1981, but they looked contemporary. Sometimes they're quite good about it, though. The filter thing seems a bit 'cheap' - besides the commonness of blueish TV shows, it also has 'look, it's like it's faded because it's 30 years ago' appeal - but it, and the decor, work together quite well for the Soviet interior scenes.

I wasn't a teen until the 90s, but I remember the 80s, and I think the show just does a good job of not reminding you too much about it. The home decor can pass for 90s and modern times, not much has really changed. Microwaves and stoves are still big boxes of metal.

There aren't many cars shown in the show and I just get a feeling that the strategy of the producer to not blow budget on keeping it 80s is by not going out of their way to keep everything looking 80s.

Having been born in the mid-70's, and so being a kid in the 80s, it looks pretty perfect to me.

I really liked the Stan and Nina storyline this week. She tells him that she used sex to get the information from the old Russian spy and he feigns plausible deniability. "What? Is that how you took my request?" The guy playing Stan is underplaying it perfectly.

I think for a moment too he was surprised at how forward she was about what she did, but that kind of happy surprise where he also knows that she's willing to do that kind of shit in order to get him the information he needs. He's definitely doing a great job.

I also couldn't help but think he knew he was burning her as an asset and that's why he couldn't sleep at night. This show's been pretty great so far.

Pretty good episode, though again it seems like things are just kinda thrown together to move the plot forward. I thought it was silly that the FBI last week would change their encryption codes so quickly, seems like that Director guy should have been smart enough to know that would expose a mole. They could have used the knowledge that the KGB was listening in on them to set up a situation that would have nabbed or exposed agents, instead they just change the codes within hours of them being stolen. Kinda silly.

This last episode it was pretty obvious they were being interrogated by their own, and the argument they had afterward felt a little forced. I don't think the actors have the range needed to play the torn love couple as well as they do superspies.

Agreed. I really didn't feel they did a great job of re-introducing the "conflict" to their married life. Also, not sure why the side-story with the creepy guy and the kids. To show they are self reliant or something? Needed to fill up some time? Maybe setting something up for the future I guess. Still, how many more episodes before the FBI guy and the Russian mole start up something? I only give it one or two more episodes I think.

Well, Kerri convinced me with, "Show them your face. Show them your FACE!"

I have a massive crush on Nina. When she is offed by Granny I am going to be extremely put out.

Nina to Stan after sex:

"Don't vorry. I'm not going to use that against you."

Translation:

"You probably better start vorrying because I'm probably going to use that against you."

Guess it was only one.

I suspect that the fact that they were being interrogated by their own people was supposed to be obvious. That or they need to have some harsh words with the guy who writes their guide descriptions, because that made it pretty damn clear.

I'm still an episode back (so many shows I have to pay attention to), but I do have to ask - where in the christ bucket flaming sack of ass was it that Russian Mole and Noah Emmerich were meeting where he gave her the camera? That looked like some kind of cross between Laser Floyd and a bug walking on the lens at a movie theater.

So, yea. I'm officially tired of the "we love each other, we don't love each other" every single episode. They aren't allowed to be happy or sad for an entire episode before either making up or hating each other again. Just figure it out, or find other ways to create tension on the show. They are damn spies. It shouldn't be that hard.

Yeah, that aspect of the show is well past tireseome. Also Keri Russell's character seemed to get a really preposterous bunch of stuff to say and think that epsiode in terms of making excuses for their superiors and blaming herself and her husband: I'd rather the differences in opinion between her and him be a lot more subtly handled.

I'm mostly just tired of Felicity refusing to make up her goddamn mind about it. Matthew Rhys has at least been allowed to take a pretty consistent position. The only non-work-related hide the sausage he played at all was after their whole blowup, and he regretted it pretty much immediately upon getting home. This is, of course, made more frustrating by the knowledge that this is definitely getting a second season (and is hoping for several dozen more after that), so, spoiler alert, THEY'RE GOING TO FUCKING MAKE UP, because otherwise the show would just be horrible to watch. The show knows as well as we do that those characters are the most fun when they're actually happy to be with each other.

In other news, I'm going to be real sad when mini-Maya Rudolph gets dead. I like her. And it lets FX get back to one of its core principals - as many ass as we can put on a screen. I also feel like I should call out the show for not (yet, anyway) making at least one of the boys The Worst Thing In The World. I don't hate the Russians' boy at all. Noah Emmerich's....ehhhhh....but I'll give them some rope, at least until they inevitably wrap SleeperDaughter around his junk, which will be an unfortunate turn for that character to inevitably take that I really hope they can resist the urge toward. And I'd like a whole episode explaining what in the fuck that bizarre goddamn twenty person theater they had the spy camera handover meeting in is about. Should I be wearing my filthy raincoat when I'm watching that scene or just tripped out on a couple of tabs of acid?