Netflix Has Found Its ‘24’

The Night Agent is Netflix’s new improbably huge show, stampeding onto the scene with the service’s third biggest debut week ever by viewing hours, behind only Wednesday and Dahmer.

I didn’t really think much of the generic-looking spy series when I first saw it, but after hearing these numbers, I knew there had to be some kind of magic to it. So I just binged it in two days.

What I found in The Night Agent is a show that reminds me quite a bit of the early days of 24 on FOX, before that series went completely off the rails when ideas became sparse and the 24 episode real-time format became oppressive.

No, this is not a real-time clock ticker, but the conspiracies, the action, the overall network-style tone reminded me quite a bit of 24, even if its lead, Peter Sutherland is no Jack Bauer. He’s competent, certainly, but it’s hard to see him becoming a true TV action legend like Kiefer Sutherland’s Bauer. Wait, I just made the “Sutherland” connection…

I would describe The Night Agent as one of the most “watchable” shows I’ve seen lately. It’s not an amazing show, and yet I couldn’t help but keep watching episode after episode, needing to know what happens even if I had…kind of mostly guessed what was going to happen. The people I thought were innocent were innocent, the people I thought were traitors were traitors. And yet it was still good? Enjoyable? Fun?

There are plenty of spy shows to choose from these days, the very self-serious Jack Ryan on Amazon. Slow Horses on Apple. Netflix’s own The Recruit. But The Night Agent does stand out. There’s essential zero comedy here at all, unlike The Recruit and Slow Horses. And I would say it’s far less boring than Jack Ryan, and its lead, Gabriel Basso, gives a more compelling performance. This seems like it will be a star-maker for him, but he’s also supported by an effective cast, his tech-hacker love interest Luciane Buchanan, Secret Service agent Fola Evans-Akingbola and his boss Hong Chau, probably the most interesting role of them all by the end.

The action is…fine. It’s certainly not John Wick, and it’s more rooted in realism than style. It’s somewhat violent, but not oppressively. There’s cursing, which Jack Bauer was never afforded past “Damn it, Chloe!” It’s good! But it’s sort of just…only good, and I am still somewhat perplexed why this show had this massive of a debut compared to the other dozen originals Netflix releases in a given month.

The Night Agent has already gotten a season 2 greenlight, which is complicated because there was only one Night Agent book, and now it must invent a new tale without source material to draw on. When it returns, I mean, I’ll be watching, as the series is strangely compelling in ways I cannot fully articulate. Give it a shot.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.