Today seems to be the day for shows I should like, but don’t. Whiskey Cavalier has at its root the premise of an FBI agent and a CIA agent working together to take down some bad guys, although the pilot is their origin story. High-energy, lots of action, international espionage, sounds great. Almost like Alias or Covert Affairs, both of which I liked.

The FBI agent is played by Scott Foley, and that’s a hit/miss thing with me. I haven’t loved him in anything, probably all the way back to Felicity days, and when the show opens, he’s crying in a hotel room in some spoof-like scene of the dumped boyfriend. He then turns into Jason Bourne for a bit, albeit with long soulful moments to talk about love.

The CIA agent is played by Lauren Cohan, and she’s awesome to watch. Cute, funny, kick-ass, did I mention cute? The two go head-to-head for the same target and it’s pretty evenly matched.

There’s some supporting cast members, but it is the two main agents for most of the show.

Which leaves me with two problems going forward. First and foremost, the tone of the show is half-spoof. They poke fun at the genre repeatedly, while playing it straight themselves, and it grates on the nerves before the end of the FIRST EPISODE. It’s not funny enough to be spoof, it’s not serious enough to be tense.

Second, the whole fun of the first episode is them competing against each other — but at the end of the episode, they join forces and will be working together. Sure, there will be interplay, but really? You upend the ENTIRE premise of the show after the first episode?

Pass.

On my early review of the show, all I knew was that it was CIA and FBI hotshots, and my prediction was CANCELLATION. I’ll stand by that now.