This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
What if sort-of-funny nerds worked for Homeland Security?
That, in a nutshell, is the concept behind "Scorpion" (Monday, 8 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2). A bunch of misfits with sketchy pasts take on high-tech threats to America while battling personal awkwardness.
The show has been called a nerd "A-Team," and that's not a bad description.
Team leader Walter (Elyes Gabel) is a flat-out genius; Happy (Jadyn Wong) is a mechanical genius; Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a behaviorist who can read anyone; and Sylvester (Ari Stidham) is a statistics guru. Also on board is Paige (Katharine McPhee), who has a misfit young son and a romantic interest in Walter.
They work for federal agent Cabe Gallo (Robert Patrick).
In the premiere, the team is called in when the Los Angeles air-traffic control system goes haywire, and it's got some really cool action scenes.
CBS keeps advertising this as a based-on-a-true-story show, but I can guarantee you the really cool action scene in the premiere never happened. Unless you think a commercial jetliner buzzed a small airport, dropping an Ethernet cable to a speeding sportscar eight feet below so it could be plugged into a laptop and save dozens of jets from disaster.
It's fun, but not exactly believable.
And don't hold your breath waiting for that much action in future episodes. (Too expensive.)
The pilot of "Scorpion" isn't bad. But it looks very much like a show that's going to get old quickly.