Most things in this world have their good points and their not-so-good points, and this is certainly true of \u201cThe Copenhagen Test,\u201d a science-fiction spy story about a man whose brain has been hacked. Without his knowing it, everything he sees and hears is uploaded to an unknown party, in an unknown place, as if he were a living pair of smart glasses. Created by Thomas Brandon and premiering Saturday on Peacock, its conceit is dramatically clever, if, of course, impossible. What do you watch when you learn that what you\u2019re watching is being watched?<\/p>\n
In a preamble, we meet our hero, Andrew Hale (Simu Liu, \u201cShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings\u201d<\/a>), a first-generation Chinese American Green Beret, rescuing hostages in Belarus. A voice in his headset instructs him that there is enough room for one on a departing helicopter and that he must prioritize an American citizen. Instead he picks a foreign child. This, we will learn, is the less-preferred choice.<\/p>\n Three years later, Hale is working for the Orphanage, a shadowy American intelligence agency that spies on all the less-shadowy American intelligence agencies \u2014 watching the watchers. (So much watching!) Its proud boast is that, since its inception in the Bush I administration, it has never been compromised. (Until someone started looking through Hale\u2019s eyes, that is.) There is a secret entrance to their giant complex, accessed by locking eyes with a statue in a library \u2014 it\u2019s thematically appropriate, but also very \u201cGet Smart!\u201d<\/a> That is a compliment, obviously.<\/p>\n The lower floor is where the analysts toil; entry to the upper floor, where the action is, is by the sort of fancy key that might have been used to open an executive washroom in 1895. (The decor is better there, too, with something of the air of an 1895 executive washroom.) Hale, who has been been listening to and translating Korean and Chinese chatter, dreams of moving upstairs, which will come with the discovery that his head is not entirely his own.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he has been suffering migraines, seizures and panic attacks. Ex-fianc\u00e9e Rachel (Hannah Cruz), a doctor, has been giving him pills under the table. Other characters of continuing interest include Michelle (Melissa Barrera), a bartender who will spy on Hale from the vantage point of a girlfriend, sort of; Parker (Sinclair Daniel), a newly promoted \u201cpredictive analyst\u201d with a gift for reading people and situations; Victor (Saul Rubinek), an ex-spook who runs a high-end restaurant and has known Hale forever; Cobb (Mark O\u2019Brien), a rivalrous colleague whose Ivy League persona has been drawn in contrast to Hale\u2019s; and Cobb\u2019s uncle, Schiff (Adam Godley), who also has spy knowledge. Peter Moira (Brian d\u2019Arcy James) runs the shop, and St. George (Kathleen Chalfant) floats above Moira.<\/p>\n As parties unknown look through Hale\u2019s eyes, the Orphanage is watching Hale with the usual access to the world\u2019s security cameras. (That bit of movie spycraft always strikes me as far-fetched; however, a conversation in the privacy of my kitchen will somehow translate into ads on my social feeds, so, who knows?) \u201cThe Copenhagen Test\u201d isn\u2019t selling a surveillance state metaphor, in any case; this is just one of those \u201cWho Can You Trust?\u201d stories, one that keeps flipping characters to keep the show going, somewhat past the point of profitability.<\/p>\n