CIA follows two very different government agents forced to work together when a dangerous threat emerges on American soil. Colin Glass, played by Tom Ellis, is an experienced rule breaker who prefers operating outside the system, while FBI agent Bill Goodman, played by Nick Gehlfuss, is the by-the-book “boy scout” who believes there are rules for a reason.
Their bosses, Nikki Reynard and Jubal Valentine, played by Necar Zadegan and Jeremy Sisto, put the unlikely partnership together, sending them after terrorist plots and national security threats. The premise is familiar, the characters are familiar, and unfortunately, almost nothing about the show feels new.
Tom Ellis is easily the strongest reason to watch the series. He has the screen presence to carry a spy thriller, and the camera clearly enjoys following him whenever Colin walks into a scene. Ellis gives the character enough confidence and attitude to make the rebellious CIA operative entertaining, even though the script mostly reduces him to the standard bad-boy agent who ignores orders and gets results. Nick Gehlfuss works well as the more disciplined Bill, creating the predictable contrast between instinct and procedure, but the show never pushes their relationship far enough to make the partnership genuinely surprising.
There is no particularly memorable villain in the first episode, with the threat functioning more as a weekly obstacle than a character capable of carrying the story. The pilot involves a Venezuelan asset, a stolen top-secret weapon, and a potential threat to New York, giving Colin and Bill plenty to investigate while the series establishes its formula. The danger is serious enough to create tension, but the villains are ultimately secondary to the familiar government-agents-versus-terrorists structure.
CIA comes from CBS, a network with decades of experience producing successful procedural television, and that experience is both its strength and its biggest problem. The show understands exactly how to build a traditional network thriller, but it also feels trapped by that formula. Instead of trying to compete with Homeland, The Americans, or the more ambitious modern spy dramas, CIA seems comfortable operating closer to the old CSI model, where each episode delivers a threat, some investigation, a few complications, and a clean resolution.
The action is serviceable rather than impressive. There are undercover operations, surveillance, weapons, helicopter sequences, and moments where the characters find themselves in genuine danger, but the stunts and shootouts rarely feel distinctive. The camera keeps the action clear and gives Ellis plenty of opportunities to dominate the frame, yet there is little visual creativity that would separate CIA from dozens of other network thrillers.
The biggest problem is that the series feels strangely disconnected from the world it is trying to portray. A show about the CIA operating inside the United States could have explored difficult questions about surveillance, government power, domestic intelligence, and the limits of federal authority. Instead, CIA largely treats its premise as unquestionable, presenting its agents as straightforward heroes while avoiding the political and moral complications that could have made the story interesting.
There are some positives, including an LGBTQ+ subplot that adds a more human dimension and a handful of entertaining spycraft elements involving undercover identities, secret relationships, and off-the-books operations. Ellis and Gehlfuss also have enough chemistry to keep the central partnership watchable.
Still, CIA is ultimately a cheesy television thriller that could easily be playing in the background while you are doing something else. It feels like another CBS procedural built for an audience that wants familiar characters, predictable threats, and uncomplicated resolutions rather than something that challenges the genre. Viewers who enjoy traditional network crime and spy shows may find it comfortable, but anyone looking for a fresh take on espionage should look elsewhere. CIA has nothing particularly new to offer, and in a television landscape filled with better and more ambitious choices, that is a serious problem.
