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Exclusive Details on the New J.J. Abrams Spy Show, Undercovers

Abrams.

With the final season of Lost kicking off in just eight weeks, we’re already feeling preemptive J.J. Abrams withdrawal symptoms. (Never too early to get started!) Fortunately, we’ve uncovered some top-secret information about Abrams’s newest TV project, Undercovers. The lighthearted series about married spies that he’s developing for NBC (wait, they’re still making shows?) has been described as Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets The Bourne Identity, but it’s sounding more like Alias meets Hart to Hart to us.

Sources tell us that the underwraps show (co-written by Abrams and Josh Reims, who worked together on Felicity and What About Brian; pilot to be directed by Abrams) is about husband and wife Samantha and Steven, who met as fellow spies, left spookdom to run a catering company, and have now been called back into service. But, according to one source familiar with the project, Abrams and Co. have been stressing that unlike Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this is a happy, loving, bantering couple who never once even consider killing each other. “They’re as likely to make a marinara sauce together as they are to bug an embassy,” said another source who has read the script. Ah, so it’s Alias meets Hart to Hart meets Live! With Regis and Kelly! (Warner Brothers TV, which is producing the pilot, did not respond when asked for comment.)

The pilot mission of our spies/chefs, who previously made a pact not to discuss their pasts, is to hunt down a possible former flame of Samantha’s whom the CIA thinks has gone rogue — but we all know to prepare for a plot twist. And that’s not the only complication: Samantha has a screw-up sister who works for the catering company. As the couple spends more and more time away from home, she has to take on a bigger role in the family business, according to our sources. So we recalculate: It’s Alias meets Hart to Hart meets Live! With Regis and Kelly plus Rhoda Morgenstern’s sister, Brenda.

Exclusive Details on the New J.J. Abrams Spy Show, Undercovers