State of Affairs

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.