You couldn’t find a more pleasant couple to watch in a new TV show than Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell. He was the standout actor in “Brothers and Sisters”; she’s been a TV sweetheart since “”Felicity” and has made her mark in several movies.
But in “The Americans” (FX, 10 p.m.) they are more than just a married couple in suburban Washington circa the early 1980s. They are also KGB spies, raising their family amid all the spy stuff in the middle of the Reagan Cold War.
Well, it doesn’t quite wash, and not just because Russell is another one of those slightly built model-type actresses who has to beat up big lugs each week. When an FBI agent charged with finding foreign agents happens to move next door, the thing the show may need is a laugh track to mark the crazy hijinx.
Actually there isn’t enough humor for that. I kept thinking how much better if the whole thing had been the resurrection of Natasha Fatale and Boris Badenov from the “Bullwinkle” cartoon series of the earlier Cold War.
But chief on your mind when you deal with elements like Langley and CIA headquarters is how much better “Homeland” did all of this stuff; so much better, it’s almost unfair. It may have its moments but “The Americans” doesn’t quite work.
As for the 80s stuff, as effective as the coda of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” is in the pilot, the use of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” is just lazy and overdone. “The Carrie Diaries” does a better job reflecting the time period.