If you managed to sit through all six seasons of J.J. Abrams' mystery drama
Lost, you're either done with the man for good or salivating at the prospect of his next television project.
Good news for the latter is that Undercovers, his new spy thriller, has been bought by M-Net and will start airing on the channel later this year (the premiere date is yet to be scheduled).
The series stars Boris Kodjoe, best known for his role as courier-turned-sports agent Damon Carter on the Showtime drama series
Soul Food; and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (
Doctor Who), an English actress whose father is a South African doctor.
Best described as a mix between Mr. and Mrs. Smith and
Hart to Hart, the series is about an impossibly hot couple, the Blooms, who were two of the best spies the CIA had ever known, until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired.
When fellow spy and good friend Leo Nash (Carter MacIntyre,
Nip/Tuck) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated by boss and agency liaison, Carlton Shaw (
Gerald McRaney,
Major Dad), to locate and rescue Nash.
With assistance from resourceful CIA field agent Bill Hoyt (Ben Schwartz,
Parks and Recreation), whose professional admiration for Steven isn't hard to miss, the pair is thrust back into the world of espionage, disguises and hand-to-hand combat.
Following leads that take them to cities spanning the globe, Steven and Samantha quickly realise that perhaps this supercharged, undercover lifestyle provides exactly the kind of excitement and romance that their marriage has been missing.
Unlike Lost, the series does not have an ongoing narrative - there is a stand-alone adventure each week.
The show has been put together by a veritable who's who of TV gurus: it was co-created by Abrams and Josh Reims (
Brothers & Sisters,
What About Brian), who are also executive producers with longtime Abrams collaborator Bryan Burk (
Fringe, Lost,
Alias).
The series premiered in the USA on NBC last week (Wednesday 22 September). We'll keep you posted about the South African premiere.
In the meantime, a bit more about the spy-lish couple:
Boris KodjoeBorn in Vienna, Austria and raised in Germany, Kodjoe was previously named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine and has amassed an impressive list of film and television credits.
He is best known for his role as Damon Carter in Soul Food, which garnered him three NAACP Award nominations. He also starred in the short-lived sitcom Second Time Around with wife Nicole Ari Parker, with whom he also starred in Soul Food.
Prior to launching his acting career, he modeled at the Ford Modeling agency, where he was involved in such campaigns as Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis, Yves Saint Laurent and The Gap.
Fluent in German, French, English and some Spanish, Kodjoe aspired to be a professional tennis player. A back injury ended his tennis aspirations; however, he was quickly discovered for modeling and soon after fell into acting.
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Gugu Mbatha-RawGugu was previously best known for her television roles as Jenny in the fifth season of Spooks (2006), and her lead role as Vivienne Davis in Bonekickers (2008).
Gugu (short for Gugulethu, Zulu for "Our Pride") was born in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, to South African doctor Patrick Mbatha and his English wife, nurse Anne Raw.
Her parents separated when she was only a year old, though she is still close to her father and was brought up by her mother in the town of Witney, Oxfordshire.
Her British television credits include M15, Doctor Who, Marple: Ordeal By Innocence, Bonekickers, and Fallout. It was this latter role that led to her being selected as a Star of Tomorrow 2008 by industry magazine Screen International.
Her role in Undercovers is her first major starring television role and based on reviews of her performance she seems set to land plenty more.
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