Picks and Pans Review: Covert Oops

By TOM GLIATTO, MONICA RIZZO

UPDATED 04/04/2011 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 04/04/2011 at 01:00 AM EDT

The dark-suited spies on CBS' comedy-drama CHAOS (premiering April 1) run around in a slapstick frenzy, thumbing their noses at the boss back at CIA headquarters, then return to drab offices that look as if they haven't been redecorated since the second year of the Cold War. What's the point of it all? FX's spy parody Archer is funnier, and AMC's short-lived Rubicon was a more sharply realized fantasy of work life in a shadow bureaucracy. This is a botched mission.