Having finally purchased my season pass for Agent X I've been sort of binge-watching the episodes which have aired thus far and it's not difficult to imagine series creator William Blake Herron saying to Laura Engel: "So yeah, you know, that show Zero Hour was kooky and all, but I gotta have Trevor Rabin score my ridiculous espionage series too, okay?!"
Trevor and Paul are naturals for this kind of work, they can do it in their sleep. I just wish perhaps that they hadn't done so much of it over the years. A mix of orchestral grandeur, tense electronica, some interesting guitar, percussion, and synth textures and a bit of ambient and chorale wash here and there, it's everything we expect for this kind of narrative; which is not a bad thing, certainly. If anything I find the scoring a bit more like the National Treasure films than the score for Zero Hour, which I felt was supposed to be taken seriously no matter what was happening onscreen (Spoiler Alert: it was usually ridiculous). There's more of a playful quality, an almost ironic commentary on what action scores are supposed to do - but my impressions may be the result of having experienced Trevor using the score as the Straight Man in a number of films, such as Get Smart and G-Force.
The show? It's okay, I guess. It's got good casting and production values (although I'm sorry, you can't pass off Canada, or California, as Russia - the roads are too well-maintained). There's plenty of action: fight scenes, shoot-em-ups, daring stunts, cat-and-mouse strategies, verbal snark...it's meant to be escapist fun and it works on that level. It would be fun to riff and snark on it, and I may do that at some point, though it doesn't quite work as well on that level because this show knows you can't take it seriously, whereas with Zero Hour they thought they were being serious, at least. There are some scenes in Agent X which are high camp, and that's a refreshing change which hearkens back to the days of Bond (if anyone knows camp, it's the Brits). It's a little bit too by-the-numbers in terms of how each difficulty resolves itself, but again, it's supposed to be fun, so that's to be expected. It appears the trades agree with me, Variety weighs in thus: And wonder of wonders, it mostly works, at least initially, combining a sense of playfulness with bountiful action and, less successfully, a sweeping conspiracy. But c'mon, who wouldn't want a pet black ops field agent who you can use however you desire in order to defeat the bad guys. You'd think, though, that nothing good ever comes of plausible deniability (both historically and in Tom Clancy novels) so I don't know how well that actually works as a plot device except as wish fulfillment. Plus a butler who addresses you as "Madame Vice President." Sign me up!
The show does, however, serve to underscore that privacy is pretty much a nonexistent concept in the modern world, because although the Super Secret Agent is supposed to be a ghost, he is continually tracked through his series of adventures all over the world. We are all voyeurs - and this includes his boss Madame Vice President and her Jeeves - witnessing Case's escapades in real time because there is surveillance everywhere.
It is nice to hear that kind of "Let's go save the world" music which Trevor has been writing since Armageddon - it's so inspiring, like, whenever I have to brave crowds to go shopping, I imagine myself as I walk through the parking lot moving in slow motion set against the building gravitas of an aggressive orchestral motif on the soundtrack. John Case has an appropriately heroic theme, for example. And also the "Some Crazy Spy Shit is Going Down" music, such as we know from Bad Company, for example. Most of it has a really great groove to it - some of it even reminds me of themes from Gone In 60 Seconds - I consider that sort of thing to be more Paul's forte - as he's written some good cues of that type, like "The Throb" (Gone In 60 Seconds) and "Agent 23" (Get Smart). I'm assuming Herron's main directive to Trevor was: "Uh...you just do you, you know? I want people to know they're in an action movie because they would pretty much have to be if there's one of your scores playing." It's what I believe Gordon Goodwin once referred to as "that Trevor Rabin thing." As usual, the quality of Trevor and Paul's work elevates the material beyond its limitations and failings, and that is one of the true aspects of their marquee value: if they're on your project, it's going to sound like a blockbuster for sure.
There is a humorous use of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker in episode three, "Back In Your Arms," - scoring a rather clumsy and brutal fight scene - and I appreciate that sort of nod, given Trevor's love of classical music. But it's rather an old joke, strictly speaking.
I do like the title/end credits theme, it's brash and crunchy.
