State of Affairs

Compared to “Homeland,” State of Affairs is hands down the weaker show. Compared to the broadcast networks’ other new dramas, it’s strong enough — just enough — to deserve a chance to find its legs and maybe even make itself comfortable in “The Blacklist’s” old Monday night time slot.

It may be a couple of weeks before we decide whether these lead characters and their ensemble will be able to mix the soap and the political intrigue into a story that makes us care enough to keep coming back.

After this overheated effort to make Charlie interesting, or at least different, she's basically just another Carrie Mathison without the pills.

Heigl's serviceable, and the show's writing is fun enough that, as long as audiences don't expect the next great political thriller, State of Affairs could be a worthwhile way to spend the concluding hours of a Monday night.

The show is modestly exciting, at the very least watchable, and has network-quality production values, though no discernible filmmaking personality to speak of.

The series holds out the promise of a solid, if unspectacular, network procedural.

State of Affairs is simply an efficient, if warmed-over, drama that features a lot of scribbling, typing, hushed conversing, hand-wringing, ominous intoning, and watching of special ops footage by Heigl and other CIA analysts.

Because there's no direction to the story just yet, the show balances on Heigl's appeal. Although she is styled well and written to be likable, she's not going to win you over with her charm.

Affairs never manages to overcome this sense of hollowness in its pilot, which plants seeds for an overarching mystery--one that feels exhausting even before it has begun unfolding--but never delves deeper than Charlie’s desire to avenge Aaron’s death.

It is easy to buy [Heigl] in these more casual moments, especially given quiet, excellent support by Sheila Vand, Cliff Chamberlain and Tommy Savas as her fellow (though hierarchically inferior) co-analysts.... [But] The more amped-up the action and the more tangled the weave of its web is revealed to be, the more hilarious State of Affairs becomes.

While it is completely watchable, it is also, unlike Scandal, not distinctive in any way.

Alfre Woodard isn’t given a lot to do as President Constance Payton in the premiere, but, unlike Heigl, she does have the gravitas for the role, and the show would be wise to use her more.

State of Affairs doesn't have to be original to be good, but I'm not sure what good comes of the mixed-up show it is right now.

A total of nine executive producers, including Heigl and her mother, Nancy. That’s too many cooks for what turns out to be a half-baked hour of ridiculosity.

State of Affairs is not quite a pulpy thrill ride, not quite an addictive melodrama and not quite a serious, searching drama.

The narrative of State of Affairs is not as outré as the one in “Scandal,” but it’s still preposterous and at times laughable.

State of Affairs is another generic Washington D.C.-set thriller drawing on current events for story points (terrorist threats, hostage-taking, global unrest) in a way that feels opportunistic and, frankly, insensitive considering the real-world tragedies that are showing up in the news.

Far from any inspiration, this show feels not just like it was created by a committee, but a Senate subcommittee at that. And in TV terms, that’s a pretty sorry state of affairs.

The episode being aired tonight is slightly better than the original pilot, which does mean the producers realized work needed to be done. They just haven't done nearly enough. An altered State, true, but a sorry one, still.

Cluttered and implausible, the series premiere of NBC’s State of Affairs, hints at the show that could be engaging underneath the poor filmmaking and even more frustrating writing and performances.

NBC's disappointingly derivative State of Affairs [is] a clumsy and unconvincing star vehicle for a miscast Katherine Heigl.

Though Ms. Heigl does throw herself into those life-or-death presidential briefing decisions of hers--powers that could have been conceived only in the fantasies of desperate scriptwriters. They have much to be desperate about.

The writing does no one any favors, failing even to make the most of Alfre Woodard as president.

A pilot that is, at best, flawed, and, at worst, messy-bad.

Everything about it feels TV-fake and contrived and throwing Heigl into the mix just heightens the sense that viewers are watching a high-glam actress pretending to be a top U.S. intelligence analyst.

You’ve seen it all before, done better at times, worse at others, and the presence of Heigl isn’t enough to make State of Affairs anything more than just another second-rate wannabe.