The entertainment world has been buzzing for weeks now about J.J. Abrams‘ new Mr. and Mrs. Smith-esque spy drama Undercovers, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Samantha Bloom and Boris Kodjoe as Steven Bloom, which comes to NBC this fall. So we were pretty excited to hear yesterday that Italian website Il Post had posted the first 20 pages of the pilot scrip online.
There was some speculation as to whether the script was real or not – most people seemed to think that it was, based on Abrams’ trademark expository goofiness (“for a moment we’re in a WIDE SHOT: holy shit, the Eiffel Tower glittering in the distance”) – but today it was confirmed that the leak is authentic. Il Post just published another article presenting an email communique from Michael Bentkover of Warner Bros. requesting that the website “act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material or items claimed to be infringing.”
Il Post has now disabled the link to the 20 page document, but not before a number of people got a chance to peruse its contents. So what did they find? We won’t give away any spoilers here, but the leak establishes the premise for the show, which is about a married couple of ex-CIA spies who are reactivated when a fellow spy disappears. It’s basically the standard expository treatment you would expect from the first couple minutes of any pilot, plus Abrams’ distinctively fast-paced back-and-forth dialogue that will be familiar to viewers of Alias.
Perhaps the funniest bit from the leak is Abrams’ unintentionally hilarious “Note to the Reader,” which informs us that “The pace of this series is intended to be unusually, almost unspeakably , fast. Sure, we won’t deny the script is long. But that’s only if you judge by something as arbitrary as page numbers. So when reading the script, assuming you get past this page, whether it’s an action sequence or just two people speaking, imagine scenes MOVING LIGHTNING FAST. Then imagine them just the slightest bit faster. This will hopefully give you a sense of what we’re going for.”
How fast is “just the slightest bit faster” than “MOVING LIGHTNING FAST,” you ask? Is it Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote fast? Is it Spaceball One traveling at Ludicrous Speed fast? I sincerely hope that it’s not as fast as the editing in The Bourne Ultimatum, because that made me a little nauseous. But whatever fast-paced action Abrams has in store for us in Undercovers, it’s probably going to be awesome. Abrams hasn’t struck out yet, so here’s hoping for everyone’s sake that Undercovers is another hit. Enjoy the trailer below:
Source: Io9
