Agent X

While Agent X opens on a lighter note, the show begins drifting toward a perhaps too-familiar framework--with a shadowy cabal threatening to upset the established order--in the third and fourth hours, which reflect a qualitative dip compared with the premiere. That said, the action remains solid throughout, and the material is elevated by the casting.

The show doesn’t cover new ground, but it gets a passing grade for being competent within the overly familiar territory of the spy genre.

Bursts of violence aside, Agent X doesn’t work well as an action thriller. And while watching it for comedy, intentional or not, is more enjoyable, that’s probably no reason to tune in every week.

Action is the main course here, however many semi-meaningful dramatic condiments surround it.

Yes, it’s all a lot of hokum in this mostly lighthearted adventure series that situates Ms. Stone as the boss while she watches Agent X run missions via video link.

[Sharon Stone's] character could be erased and the show wouldn’t miss a beat--heck, it might actually be better.... Hephner comes off as a cross between Kevin Costner and a “Just for Men” model and is adequate handling the light banter the scripts spoon out. This is a Sunday night show for people who find “The Walking Dead” too grim and “The Good Wife” too real.

Agent X has very little that's new. It goes pretty much where every spy show has gone before, including the wry mid-1960s dramedy The Wild Wild West. I admit, Agent X offers boatloads of fun. It's a pleasant diversion filled with great eye candy.

Writer-creator William Blake Herron (oh, that’s why the veep was reading Blake) pays homage to the great spy thrillers of the 1960s, not to mention the entire James Bond franchise, without really coming close to what they had to keep audiences on the edges of their seats.

Agent X is a silly, overly earnest espionage drama. [6 Nov 2015, p.57]

Agent X feels undernourished in every aspect, from production design to cinematography to the staging of its action sequences to its casting.

It is difficult to understate the breathtaking and apparently straight-faced derangement of Agent X.

It’s meant to be a straight-ahead action drama, but it plays like a spoof, from the absurd premise to the cheap sets and bad acting.

It is breathtakingly inept. Either that or subversively brilliant: A send-up of every mawkish cliche, idiotic plot twist or ludicrous splatter of dialogue that's propped up every preposterous secret agent thriller.