The Cynical Desi: Catching Up with ‘Quantico’s’ Mediocrity

By Sid Sharma
The Cynical Desi
@SidBSharma

When we last left Alex Parish (Priyanka Chopra) in Quantico, I was optimistic.  Trust me, this is the closest I can come to being psyched about something.  Now that we have a few episodes under our belt, we can sit back and confidently call out the show for what it is: an overwrought mess that is as phony as it is frustrating.

So what’s wrong with Quantico?

Mostly I am sick of the Tiny Toons version of the FBI in the show.  In the age of ISIS and Snowden, the public has certain expectations and knowledge of what happens in our anti-terror agencies.  We have an appreciation that these are imperfect people trying to do a really tough job.  And they get it wrong plenty of times.  I just don’t see this emotional toll on the faces of these characters.  All I see are perfectly made up characters that late teen and early twenty somethings dream of becoming after walking into a Sephora.

And enough with the twists.  The plot twist is a fantastic piece of dramatic misdirection.  It’s a great way to keep your audience engaged because there is no better feeling than being presented with something unexpected.  But there is a limit.  When you have a twist every time you go into a commercial, it drains the audience.

Here’s an unsolicited production note: when you have to start writing things down to keep track of what’s happening in the episode, it’s usually a bad sign.  It’s frustrating to see characters introduced and then die within minutes while you constantly have to flowchart their loyalties.  This is not character growth.  Rather, it demonstrates a form of lazy writing.

Finally, Chopra is a mediocre actress with a fantastic PR operation and agent.  Sorry, this has to be said.  Her natural dramatic range seems to be looking constantly surprised as she goes from one aforementioned plot twist to the other.  There is simply no aggression or threat from Ms. Chopra and therefore she is thoroughly unbelievable as an FBI agent.  Yea, you could say that she’s on track to becoming this rugged person as the show progresses.  But you have to ask yourself if these panicky people can even pass the initial phone screen.
 
But hey, maybe it’s’ me.  There are actually people are doing fan art from the show like it’s the new Twilight.  So, as always, I invite you to make up your mind.  Maybe there’s some deep cultural vein this show has tapped and I’m just totally blind to it.