TV REVIEWS : The Spy Who Should Be Left in the Cold

Spies ain’t what they used to be. The title character of tonight’s premiere of “The Exile” is a young, hunky, brooding cross between James Bond, the Fugitive, the Spy Who Came in From the Cold and--most significantly--all those pouty guys in the 501s jeans commercials.

CBS begins its new slew of late-night action/drama programming tonight with “The Exile’s” premiere (at 11:35 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8). But somehow even Rick Dees looks more dangerous than estranged secret agent John Stone (Jeffrey Meek), a former U.S. intelligence mole who was betrayed by an unknown enemy and branded a traitor, leaving him your basic spook without a country.

The opening credits sequence is hilarious: It has Stone explaining his predicament and the show’s premise--how his mission is to find out who betrayed him, how he gets ongoing help from the two intelligence buddies in Paris who know he’s still alive, etc.--in a montage that’s been shot and scored like a post-MTV light beer commercial, complete with our superspy hero noodling on a sax and cavorting in the bathtub with babes galore.

After that credit sequence, though, the show itself offers little unintentional comic relief, not to mention zero tension. In this first episode, Stone’s Parisian spy buddies solicit his help in dealing with a defecting Soviet general, who may just know which American agent betrayed Stone. The Soviet also just happens to have a foxy daughter (read: romantic interest) in Paris, who never quite strips down to any of the states of undress suggested during that credit sequence.

“Fugitive” echoes are obvious. Each week, presumably, in the midst of foiling some villain, Stone will think he has a lead on solving his own case, but will never find out too much. But he seems to lead such a glamorously oversexed life in Paris, even as an exile in hiding, that his vindication is hardly a matter of urgency. And the location shooting scarcely makes up for low-budget production values, hokey writing and unspeakably hammy or wooden performances.

(CBS’ other new entries for the 11:35 p.m. slot are “Scene of the Crime” on Wednesdays, “Fly by Night” on Thursdays, “Dark Justice” on Fridays and “Sweating Bullets” on Mondays.)