Conspiracy-laden espionage dramas like Peacock‘s The Copenhagen Test always have to balance what to tell its viewers with what it needs to hide. The problem with that is, of course, that the show’s writers can get too clever for their own good and make the first episodes of their show a confusing mess. To a degree, that’s what is going on here.
Opening Shot: A military helicopter flies over a darkened landscape.
The Gist: Alexander Hale (Simu Liu) is on a special forces mission in Belarus, tasked with extracting hostages. His role is to be stationed outside the area as a sniper, but when things go sideways, he runs in and engages. As he tries to look for hostages, he hears a female voice on his radio telling him that there is only one seat, and American hostages should receive top priority. However, he sees a Belarusian boy hiding and grabs him, before an American woman approaches him, looking to be rescued.
Three years later, Alexander is working as an analyst for The Orphanage, an agency created in the 1990s that watches the other government intelligence agencies, sort of an Internal Affairs or sorts. He was taken out of the field after the Belarus incident, and is valued as an analyst for his ability to speak and translate Mandarin. Since Belarus, though, he’s had migraines and flashbacks. But he doesn’t want to be on record as having these symptoms, so he still gets medicine off-book from his ex-fiancée, who is a psychiatrist.
He wants a promotion “upstairs,” so he can go back to field work. He think’s he’s being passed over for a mission, and then finds out that three of his assets were exposed and killed. After his report on that goes up the ranks, though, he’s given that promotion, to work a mission he hasn’t heard of before.
One of the people who help his transition upstairs is Ellie (Sara Amini), but she is among the people who also watch what Alexander sees, which is posted on monitors in a hidden room. Apparently, at some point a third party hacked into Alexander’s brain, and somehow the government has access, as well.
After one too many random flashbacks, especially while talking to a friendly bartender named Michelle (Melissa Barrera), he does some research and finds out that he was subject to a loyalty trial called “The Copenhagen Test,” which leads him into classified files to see what might describe what he’s been seeing and feeling.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Thomas Brandon with James Wan on board as an EP, The Copenhagen Test has earmarks of action shows like Jack Ryan or 24, but also with some sci fi elements that are reminiscent of Minority Report.
Our Take: The first episode of The Copenhagen Test sets up a solid premise, and Liu does a good job as Alexander, who is proud of being a first-generation Chinese-American that serves the country in the way that he does, but has been plagued for three years by what happened in Belarus. The idea that his brain has been hacked certainly has a lot of plot possibilities. But the actual facts of what is going on are muddled in the first episode, to the point where we still aren’t sure who hacked into his brain.
When John Moira (Brian d’Arcy James), who looks to be second-in-command at the Orphanage to its legendary director St. George (Kathleen Chalfant), sits down with Alexander in a room that blocks the signals coming from his brain, it seems that the situation is laid out for him. Someone hacked Alexander’s brain, the Orphanage also has access, and unless he wants to be killed, he needs to essentially live a pretend life until his handlers find out who actually hacked his brain.
But that’s not as clear as it seems. How did the Orphanage get access to his brain? It certainly seemed that they were the one who hacked into Alexander’s noggin before Moira lays out the situation for him. Does someone in the government want him dead? Was the Copenhagen Test real or fake? Was the whole Belarus operation a figment of Alexander’s imagination? And how does Michelle, whom he figured out is a part of this operation, fit into this?
None of this is clear at the end of the first episode, and we suspect it’s not supposed to be. But we also wonder if Brandon and his writers are being a little too cute with this information in order to keep viewers guessing.
Performance Worth Watching: We mentioned Liu’s solid performance, and even in his preliminary scenes with Barrera, the two of them have good chemistry.
Sex And Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Someone else is watching the feed from Alexander’s brain, and sees a message saying “Orphanage aware of hack?”
Sleeper Star: Saul Rubinek plays Victor Simonek, a former Orphanage operative who is now a chef. He’s a confidant of Alexander’s, but can he really trust Victor after finding out about the hack? Either way, we always like seeing Rubinek and his down-to-earth performing style in whatever he does.
Most Pilot-y Line: It’s an odd detail that the analysts wear suits but upstairs, the agents dress more casually. It’s also odd that the entry “key” to upstairs is a skeleton key, and that someone let Alexander in the door of the office without telling him to scan in first.
Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s enough that we like about The Copenhagen Test to recommend it. It feels mostly like a solid conspiracy drama with a little bit of sci fi mixed in, but we hope the muddled first episode isn’t a bad sign of what the rest of the season will be like.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.