Covert Affairs: The Complete Series - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Covert Affairs: The Complete Series



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Wow, this is a blast from the past that reminds me of how homogeneous the USA Network shows were back around 2007-2017 or so. You remember all these shows. Burn Notice, Suits, Covert Affairs, White Collar. A bunch of shows that blurred together because they looked the same, had the same writers, and had very similar plot points and episodic breakdowns. And that likely was because they were all worked on by the same group of writers and producers. And yeah, I enjoyed the vast majority of the shows put out by them during that time period. While Burn Notice will forever be my favorite of the bunch (due in part to Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell), Covert Affairs was probably my second favorite. Mostly due to the chemistry Auggie and Annie had in the show, despite Covert Affairs being the most soap opera-eque of the similar shows (most likely because it was a girl power-focused series, and they were trying to appeal to a female demographic as much as they wanted the boys to watch the super-spy antics)

Annie Walker (Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly and Looper fame) is a young CIA recruit who gets thrust into the line of duty with a month left of her training on the farm (CIA training facility) due to her linguistics training being necessary for a case involving a Russian assassin. There she finds that the real CIA is a lot less forgiving than what she was imagining in her head, and soon the young recruit has to earn her wings with some “on-the-job training” and go in headfirst. But along with the help of blind analyst Auggie Anderson (Christopher Gorham, who I will always think of as Jake in Jake 2.0), some guidance from DPD senior operative Joan Campbell (Kari Matchett) and Joan’s husband Arthur (Peter Gallagher), the young op may turn into a seasoned veteran yet.

The show follows the USA Network “super spy” (or super criminal in the case of White Collar) outline to a T. Episodes are fairly self contained, with a villain of the week or (every couple of weeks), with a singular main plot that lasts most of the season, or slightly into the next, before getting resolved and moving up to a more important. The show really thrives off of the flash and style of being a super cool “super spy” in the Homeland Security Department (which is how they’re able to pull off ops in the states, which the CIA normally doesn’t do), while sprinkling in a good dosage of character development to keep things interesting. Mostly between Auggie and Annie, who steal the show every time they’re on screen together. Everyone is backstabbing the other, or people you think are absolute jerks are the best people in the show. So yeah, intrigue, mystery, drama, and a good dose of soap opera when it comes to the romantic relationships. With Annie, that means a sort of triangle between her and Oded Fehr (a Mossad agent) and the sexual tension that is thick enough to cut with a knife between her and Auggie. My one complaint with the soap opera stuff was the absolutely unbelievable back and forth between Arthur and Joan, the married executives in the same department. Their back-and-forth marriage problems got old fast, and by the time they fixed them near the end of the series, the damage had been done in regards to adding that daytime soap vibe to the show.

One of the many shows in the “Characters Welcome” era of the USA Network’s shows, Covert Affairs was one of the few shows that never got a Blu-ray release. Or at least not even a SINGLE Blu-ray season released (White Collar only had one season on Blu-ray, but at least it got that ONE season out before being finished on DVD), and it has been a bit of frustration over the years as I never picked it up on DVD, waiting for the 1080p release. And not only has that time come via Universal, but they put the series in proper Blu-ray cases, with a single case for each season, packaged in a nice slip box rather than being lazy and putting them in those stupid clamshell “one case for the whole series” boxes that Warner and Paramount have been doing lately.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

While on the same USA Network series of shows like Burn Notice, it doesn’t share the same middling transfers that that show suffered with on its Blu-ray releases years ago. The series is glossy, with that overly brightened exterior look, and almost “bougie” look during interior shots. Fine details are generally really, really good, with brief moments of digital noise spikes when you look at far-away shots, or scenes where the camera pans out to an overhead image. That being said, up close visuals are good, with some minor soft edges here and there, great black levels with only brief instances of crush, and some really punchy colors that err on the side of being overly hot rather than undersaturated. Not perfect, but a very pleasing-looking image for sure.







Audio:

Audio is much the same. Featuring a singular 5.1 DTS-HD MA track, all 5 seasons of Covert Affairs sounds really good, but not super exceptional. Dialog is rendered cleanly and clearly, with some moderate bits of surround usage for when Annie gets out in the field. LFE is simple and restrained for a good portion of the show, but there are some good action bits that allow the score and the action itself to add some weight to the low end. Simply put, this is a good-sounding mix from an era of TV where most things were done with 5.1 in mind, but weren’t trying to make them sound like Game of Thrones in the mixing.








Extras:

Season One

• Commentaries
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Welcome to the Farm
• Blind Insight
• Set Tour
• Celebrate the ADA

Season Two

• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Piper Perabo Comic-Con Intro
• Covert Affairs on Location

Season Three

• Deleted Scenes
• Sights Unseen: A Covert Affairs Prequel

Season Four

• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Action Reel
• Sights Unseen: Auggie Undercover: A Covert Affairs prequel

Season Five

• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel

Final Score: ​

The whole “Characters Welcome” era of the USA Network was fairly cookie-cutter in its construction, but also pretty fun. Let's put it this way. If you liked Burn Notice, White Collar, Lie to Me, Suits,s or the like from 15-20 years ago, then you’ll likely like Covert Affairs. It’s more of the same, just with a female lead in the spy role rather than a guy, and as such it leans a bit more towards the soap opera-like elements. Ironically, it also has a decent crossover of actors from Heroes, and every character who made the crossover has better character arcs than Heroes did as well (ahh, that show I could write an essay about how good it MIGHT have been had the writers strike not happened). And thankfully we FINALLY get a proper box set, with proper cases vs. the DVDs that most of us have had to deal with for the last 12-16 years. TheBlu-rayss themselves look and sound great (way better than Burn Notice, which always suffered from looking barely better than DVD. Kind of like Chuck), and there’s even some reasonable extras thrown in for good measure.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Piper Perabo, Christopher Gorman, Bill Gallagher, Kari Matchett
Created by: Matt Corman, Chris Ord
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Universal
Rated: NR
Runtime: 3225 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: June 30th, 2026

Recommendation: Solid Watch