• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 23, 2026

The CIA guy is roguish. The FBI guy is by-the-book. Can these two government agents work together to foil international plots against the United States without driving each other crazy?

Cue the old “Odd Couple” theme music. TV’s newest odd couple arrives Monday night on CBS in a new action series with the one-word title, “CIA.”

Why “CIA”? Because “FBI” was already taken. Besides, in “CIA,” the spy agency takes centerstage, while the FBI plays a supporting role.

The Bureau is represented by FBI Special Agent Bill Goodman, played by Nick Gehlfus (above photo, left). 

In the series’ premiere -- which the TV Blog previewed on Friday -- we see Agent Goodman being assigned to a very secretive CIA/FBI task force based in New York City.

Although this unit is positioned as a CIA/FBI task force, Agent Goodman appears to be the only representative of the FBI on the team.

In a nice touch, he is informed of his reassignment by FBI Assistant Special Agent Jubal Valentine, the character from “FBI” played by Jeremy Sisto, thus linking the two shows.

As the straitlaced Goodman (literally a “good” man) is beginning his transition to the task force, we begin to get to know his CIA counterpart, Agent Colin Glass, played by Tom Ellis (above photo).

Ellis is Welsh and speaks with an English accent. How Agent Glass wound up in American intelligence is not explained.

He is certainly roguish. When we first see him, he is dropping off a date when his phone rings, alerting him to an emergency, which his date assumes is medical since he must have told her he’s a doctor.

But we soon learn that he is a crackerjack secret agent, and when the buy-the-book FBI agent shows up, Agent Glass rejects the idea of partnering with him.

Yada yada yada, they work together on the first case of the series and wouldn’t you know it? They begin to earn each other’s respect.

It’s fun to poke fun at a show like this with references to “The Odd Couple” and all that. But like these two agents, I wound up respecting this show.

One thing that will endear it to New York City residents is its faithfulness to the locations in which it was filmed.

In scenes where the agents and their team members are closing in on the bad guys in the premiere episode of “CIA,” the locations they identify over their communications devices -- most notably, cross streets in lower Manhattan -- are pinpoint accurate, even though the street names will be completely irrelevant to out-of-town viewers.

Coming from the TV drama factory of producer Dick Wolf, “CIA” comes to the air already fully formed. 

“CIA” premieres Monday (February 23) at 10 p.m. Eastern on CBS.