Scott D. Pierce: Four Musketeers meet the CIA and it's 'Chaos'

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Pasadena, Calif. • "Chaos" is an action-comedy about four CIA agents who make like Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan.

As weird as that sounds, the premiere of the new CBS series (Friday, 7 p.m., Ch. 2) is great fun.

"I'd always been a big fan of the 'Four Musketeers' tale and wanted to do an updating of it," said creator and executive producer Tom Spezialy, whose credits include everything from "Chuck" to "Desperate Housewives" to "Reaper."

He was kicking around the idea of a show about a CIA agent when he came across a book written by an ex-operative.

"On the dust cover it said of the CIA, 'They spent a lot of money, killed a lot of people, accomplished very little,' " Spezialy said. "So I started doing research and stumbled into the bureaucracy of it — 17,000 spies, all in one facility. Which also got me thinking, 'Well, they probably spy on each other a lot.' And then I just combined that with 'The Four Musketeers' and ended up with this."

"This" is an entertaining hour about four guys who work for the CIA, told through the eyes of rookie agent Rick Martinez (Freddy Rodriguez). He explains "how I learned to defend my country by defying intelligence."

When Martinez shows up for work, his lunch — his mother's home-made soup — is deemed a "suspicious fluid." He's quickly surrounded by guards aiming guns at him. Then he learns that the job for which he's been hired has been eliminated.

But Deputy Director Dorset (Kurtwood Smith) offers Martinez a choice — become a spy inside CHAOS (Clandestine Administration and Oversight Services) and help bring down a "rogue" team of operatives.

That team includes Michael Dorset (Eric Close), a psychologist-turned-CIA operative and tactical genius; Scottish-born Billy Collins (James Murray), decommissioned from the British Secret Service and deported from the UK; and Casey Malick (Tim Blake Nelson), a CIA veteran whose nonthreatening appearance hides a "human weapon." They don't play by the rules, but they get results.

And they quickly turn the tables on Martinez, co-opting him as the junior member of their team — d'Artagnan to their Athos, Porthos and Aramis.

"He's the new guy, and so in the pilot he experiences what I would imagine a lot of new guys would experience on their first day on the job," said Rodriguez. "But it's the CIA, so his experiences are probably more heightened than the average person starting a new job."

For starters, most newbies don't have to eat a live scorpion.

"Chaos" is not an indictment of the CIA, it's just entertainment. "The show's intended to be relentlessly fun," Spezialy said.

And the first hour is headed in that direction.

Scott D. Pierce's column appears Mondays and Fridays in The Mix. He can be reached at spierce@sltrib.com or 801-257-8603. Check out the TV or Not TV blog at sltrib.com/blogs/tv.