I would love to be able to recommend Counterpart highly. J.K. Simmons leads a sci fi spy thriller in dual roles? That's worth several stars on its own. The second lead is Olivia Williams, an actor I've loved for years and never seems to get a spotlight. Unfortunately the show is very uneven; it'd be nice to even be able to say "just watch season 1 (or 2)", but there's good stuff throughout the show, and also a lot of stuff that doesn't work, and it's all mixed in together. The good, then: this show nails the dynamics of spy thrillers, how to build the ratcheting sense of tension and claustrophobia and paranoia. The actors are almost universally great (with maybe one exception in season 2, but I think the writing is failing them there just as much). Obviously Simmons and Williams are terrific, and I really enjoyed Sara Serraiocco's performance as a traumatized assassin (wish we got more with her, really). But the surprise breakout character is Harry Lloyd's, who's playing the same type as every other Harry Lloyd character I've seen, but given main character prominence - especially in season 2, in a lot of ways he becomes the center of the show. If you're not familiar, the Harry Lloyd "type" is an entitled, arrogant, born into power brat - someone who's hateability is only undermined by their patheticness. (To be clear, I have no idea what Lloyd is like as a person - I hope he's a lovely fellow. But he is very good at these roles.) In this show, he's the son-in-law of one of the directors of the agency the show centers on, who's been given a high ranking position he's unqualified for as a direct result of that relationship, and who is thus ripe for being manipulated. Perhaps it helps that it's hard to ever feel too bad for him, and thus it's easier to enjoy the increasingly awful situations he finds himself in as the show goes on, and a pleasant surprise when we do feel some sympathy; but certainly just as much is that Lloyd takes the opportunity to do something deeper than most roles I've seen him in and demonstrates he's fully deserving of it. What's the problem? Mostly the same problem that spy thrillers often fall into - the mechanisms of conspiracy overwhelm the underlying content. That is to say, behind the wilderness of mirrors, there has to be a compelling answer that makes sense, and motivations that seem plausible. You have to sell that there's a reason for the machinations, and unfortunately this show fails on that regard. When the show pulls back the curtain and my response is, "...that's what this was all about? Really?", something has gone wrong. All that said, I hope it's clear that I think, if you like spy thrillers, this show is still worth watching. I can't recommend it without serious qualifications, but I did really enjoy most of my time with it, and I wish there were more of it.