1

Director Strand: You think protecting the President is more important.

Riley: Respectfully, Ma'am, it is more important.

Director Strand: Funny, he didn't think so.

Riley: I did it to protect you. Not the chip. You.

Riley: We're defined by the decisions we make, right?

Dr. Cassidy: Technology is not revolutionary. It's evolutionary. I like that.

INTELLIGENCE is a dramatic thriller starring Josh Holloway as a high-tech intelligence

operative enhanced with a super-computer microchip in his brain. With this implant,

Gabriel is the first human ever to be connected directly into the global information grid

and have complete access to Internet, WiFi, telephone and satellite data. He can hack into

any data center and access key intel in the fight to protect the United States from its

enemies. Leading the elite government cyber-security agency created to support him is

Director Lillian Strand, a straightforward and efficient boss who oversees the unit's

missions. Strand assigns Riley Neal, a Secret Service agent, to protect Gabriel from outside

threats, as well as from his appetite for reckless, unpredictable behavior and disregard for

protocol. Also on the team is Chris Jameson, a resourceful federal investigator. The brains

behind the design of the chip is Dr. Shenendoah Cassidy, whose son, Nelson, is jealous of

Gabriel's prominent place in his father's life. As the first supercomputer with a beating

heart, Gabriel is the most valuable piece of technology the country has ever created and is

the U.S.'s secret weapon. - CBS

INTELLIGENCE (CBS) REVIEW & TV PREVIEW – 1-25-2014 1-25-2014 - Written By: David L. $Money Train$ Watts – Journalist/Film Reviewer

FuTurXTV & HHBMedia.com - David Velo Stewart – Editor – HHBMedia.com - $$

David L. $Money Train$ Watts • FuTurXTV • HHBMedia.com • info@hhbmedia.com • www.hhbmedia.com • David Velo Stewart

2

I thinks the prerequisite for a TV show called Intelligence should actually have writing,

acting, production design, direction and storylines that actually is intelligent. My basic

problem with watching CBS drama shows lately is that they are either massive-well

hyped hits like Person of Interest, Sherlock Holmes or Hawaii Five-0 or they are

massive over-hyped flops like Jersey Girl, The Golden Boy or Vegas. After watching

the first three episodes of CBS’s new #1 show Intelligence I have to say that it started

off as a sure hit and now I can safely say it is teetering on edge of “Jumping the Shark”.

My first impression with seeing Josh Holloway playing Gabriel Vaughn, who is a new

breed of hybrid cyber-solider. I would like to say he is a gateway to people being turned

into cyborgs, but the show is not really like a Syfy Network sci-fi. I will say that CBS

made a wise choice because Josh was one of my favorite characters on Lost. CBS

then pulled Marge Helgenberger off of CSI to give the show someone that CBS viewers

know, trust and like to stabilize the cast. Marge plays Lilllian Strand. They then grabbed

a TV newbie with Canadian actress Meghan Orby to play Riley Neal, Gabriel’s body

guard or billion dollar babysitter. Megan was last seen playing Ruby/Red Riding Hood

on ABC’s One Upon A Time. And rounding out Intelligence’s main cast are Gabriel’s

cyber-chip inventor and monitor Dr. Shenandoah Cassidy played by veteran actor John

Billingsley and newcomer P J. Bynne who plays John’s nerdy and wise-cracking son

Nelson Cassidy. The only person of color with significance other than Gabriel’s Indian

wife Amelian Vaughn (Zuleikha Robinson) is Lance Reddick from Fringe. Right now I

see Lance’s character DCI Jeffrey Tetazoo as more of a hindrance or skeptic of the

Cyber-Squad mission and Gabriel’s effectiveness as a true intelligence asset. Hopefully,

Lance’s role will change and he will become more involved in the show’s stories. But for

now I view Lance like Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) on The Blacklist, which is a smart,

articulate, well dressed brotha overseeing a massive secret government operation that

does not really need their input or presence to get their covert missions accomplished.

David L. $Money Train$ Watts • FuTurXTV • HHBMedia.com • info@hhbmedia.com • www.hhbmedia.com • David Velo Stewart

3

Okay, so my main beef with Intelligence is that it has managed to be quite stupid and

predictable in its first three episodes that I don’t think it will be able to recover and get

renewed for a second season. First, the show wants you to believe that the government

created a multi-billion highly classified tech program on the whim that there are special

human beings with a special gene that allows them to be connected to a cyber-chip to

access and hack the Internet, satellites, closed-circuit cameras, smartphones, security

systems, computers and practically any digital device. It should not be lost on anyone

that we already had a successful cyber-upgraded human TV series with NBC’s Chuck.

And Intelligence never fully explains how our government discovered the new gene

that allows us to be pre-cyborbs. We kinda have to just trust them and the nerdy spy

tech that it is based on will come later. The pilot episode is really baffling because the

Chinese kidnap Dr. Cassidy because he created a duplicate and more complex cyber-

chip after he was kicked off the Intelligence team for no other reason except to allow

him to be outside the program, so he could be kidnapped by a rival foreign power. And

then the Chinese suddenly discover that they also have secret agent Mei Chen that has

the same cyber-gene as Gabriel. I have no idea how their government screened millions

of people to find this cyber-gene or were they only looking for the gene that conveniently

appears only so far to be only in special ops and spy trained humans. Either way we get

Cassidy back at the end of the pilot episode and now he and his son are back in the fold

running tech for Gabriel’s missions as if they never left. We move to the second episode

called “Red X” where Gabriel is obsessed with using his new cyber-powered brain to

find what happened to his deep-cover CIA wife, who is now in New York working with a

low budget Al-Qaeda-like terror cell. There is so little dialogue or clear back story about

Gabriel’s wife or her supposed classified CIA mission that by the end of the “Red X”

episode, when she blows herself up, we have no real idea why she would become a

suicide bomber, betray her country and be willing to kill her husband Gabriel. The third

episode “Mei Chen Returns” is an Edwin Snowden inspired story where a jaded female

CIA analyst steals the data about the cyber-gene program. The analyst is so upset with

the way America is abusing its technology to spy on its citizens that she runs to the

“freedom loving” Chinese to sellout, sabotage and setback our spy operations. But Mei

Chen wants the data to recreate an army of cyber-powered beings. I thought this cyber-

gene is so damn rare? What if only has Gabriel, Mei Chen and the comedian Carrot Top

has this rare cyber-gene? Maybe Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian have it

as well. Anyway, the only real reason that the Intelligence writers had the greedy CIA

analyst go to the Chinese embassy instead of the Russian embassy is Mei Chen would

have no way of easily sneaking in as a Chinese embassy worker she just happened to

look like. And the show’s writers got even lazier when Gabriel tracks down who ordered

the most KFC at a London hotel to track down Mei Chen’s cyber handler. And Gabriel’s

ability to visualize 3D renderings to solve his cases is no more special than what one

can see get solved on Sherlock Holmes, CSI or Person of Interest. Intelligence’s

plots are too simple or dumb at times to be believed, so I gotta give it a TV review of $$.

David L. $Money Train$ Watts • FuTurXTV • HHBMedia.com • info@hhbmedia.com • www.hhbmedia.com • David Velo Stewart