Most things in this world have their good and not-so-good sides, and that's certainly true of The Copenhagen Test, a sci-fi spy story about a man whose brain has been hacked. Unbeknownst to him, everything he sees and hears is uploaded to an unknown person, in an unknown location, as if he were a living smart glasses. Created by Thomas Brandon and premiering Saturday on Peacock, its conceit is extremely clever, if certainly impossible. What do you watch when you find out that what you are watching is being watched?
In the preamble we meet our hero Andrew Hale (Simu Liu, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”), a first generation Chinese American Green Beret rescuing hostages in Belarus. The voice in the headset tells him that the departing helicopter has enough room for one person and that he should give priority to an American citizen. Instead, he chooses a foreign child. As we learn, this is a less preferable choice.
Three years later, Hale works for the Shelter, a shadowy American intelligence agency that spies on and monitors all the less shadowy American intelligence agencies. (So many observers!) It is proud that since its creation under the Bush I administration, it has never been compromised. (That is, until someone started looking through Hale's eyes.) Their giant complex has a secret entrance that can be accessed by making eye contact with a statue in the library – it's thematically appropriate, but also very “Be smart!” This is obviously a compliment.
Analysts work on the lower floor; Entrance to the top floor where the action takes place is through an unusual key that may have been used to open the executive toilet in 1895. (The decor is better there, too, with some of the atmosphere of an 1895 executive restroom.) Hale, who has been listening to and translating Korean and Chinese chatter, dreams of going upstairs, which will come with the discovery that his head is not entirely his own.
Meanwhile, he suffers from migraines, seizures and panic attacks. Ex-fiancee Rachel (Hannah Cruise), a doctor, gave him pills under the table. Other characters of ongoing interest include Michelle (Melissa Barrera), a bartender who will spy on Hale from the perspective of a girlfriend of sorts; Parker (Sinclair Daniel), a newly promoted “predictive analyst” with a gift for reading people and situations; Victor (Saul Rubinek), a former spy who runs a high-end restaurant and has always known Hale; Cobb (Mark O'Brien), a rival colleague whose Ivy League persona contrasts with Hale's; and Cobb's uncle, Schiff (Adam Godley), who also has spy knowledge. Peter Moira (Brian d'Arcy James) runs the store while St. George (Kathleen Chalfant) hovers above Moira.
While strangers look through Hale's eyes, the shelter watches Hale using routine access to surveillance cameras around the world. (This part of the spy movie always seems far-fetched to me; however, the conversation in the privacy of my kitchen somehow morphs into an advertisement on my social media, so who knows?) The Copenhagen Test in no way sells the surveillance state metaphor; it's just one of those “Who can you trust?” stories that constantly change characters to keep the show going are slightly above the point of profitability.
Like most eight-hour dramas, it's too long. “Slow Horses” the best of the breed stick to six—and as the show goes on, things get tangled up in MacGuffins and subplots. While it's easy enough to enjoy what's happening in the moment, it can be easy to lose track of the plot and harder to tell who's on which side, or even how many sides. (It doesn't help that almost everyone is willing to kill Hale.) I can't go into detail without going into terrible spoiler territory, but even if you accept the impossible technology, most of the Copenhagen Trial doesn't make much practical sense, including the test of the same name. (Why Copenhagen? I don't know that. Danish for “I don’t know.”) I spent so much time untangling the knots and keeping the threads straight that, although I continued to distantly root for Hale, I ceased to care at all about the fate of the Orphanage and the supposedly free world.
The show is well put together. While the characters are largely generic on paper, each actor captures the essence of their role, adding enough personality to resemble the real person. (And they're all nice to look at.) When he's not collapsing in pain or engaging in gunfights or hand-to-hand combat, Liu is a level-headed, quiet protagonist—more in the vein of Keanu Reeves—and as a Chinese-Canadian actor, he's still a novelty among American TV action heroes. He does have some sort of chemistry with Barrera, who has her own on-screen chemistry, although it is somewhat limited by the demands of the plot.
The ending, including the diminished chord twist, is fairly typical, although happier than one might imagine given the noise that came before. Neat bows are tied, although at least one is left loose in the hope, according to my own forward-looking analysis, of a second season. And while releasing an episode in the last week of the year doesn't exactly mean certainty, I can predict with some confidence that there might be one.
