Mr & Mrs Smith: before Donald Glover and Brad Pitt, there was the series with Scott Bakula!
The new Prime Video series is actually a remake of the old one from 1996, which no one (or almost no one) saw!
Almost twenty years later Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie, Mr & Mrs Smith are making their return today on Prime Video, in the guise of Donald Glover And Maya Erskine. They play two agents on a mission, undercover, doing everything not to fall in love during their fake marriage…
A pitch that doesn’t quite resemble that of the film Mr & Mrs Smith from 2005 (where a husband and wife discovered that the other was a competing agent, all those years ago). And for good reason, these Mr & Mrs Smith from Amazon are actually a remake of an even older series.
Let’s go back in time, to 1996: the American channel CBS unveils, in prime time, its new action comedy event: Mr & Mrs Smith !
At the time, it was Scott Bakula who carries the project. While Quantum Code ended three years ago, the actor tried, without success, to move to the big screen (we quickly encountered him in Color of Night In 1994). So he produced this series himself, with Warner Bros. Television. The actor plays an agent working for a private security organization known as “The Factory”. Using secret agents and the latest technology, they gather information on technology, science and economics in an effort to protect American businesses from espionage. They are also hired as private security agents or to participate in covert operations such as recovering stolen Stinger missiles.
His Mrs. Smith is coming in the pilot. She will be embodied by Maria Bello, a young aspiring actress, who finds her first major role there. Not yet a star Ugly Coyote or The Mummy 3, she plays an agent that The Factory hires and tasks with working with Mr. Smith. The two are like cats and dogs and know nothing about each other’s private lives, including their real names. But they must form a couple in the city and a tandem on the ground!
In this first episode, a young man also arrived Timothy Olyphantaged 27, well before Justified Or Santa Clarita Diet. He played his very first role, “Scooby”, killed at the end of the pilot after betraying the agency…
Unfortunately, Mr & Mrs Smith will not go the distance. After 9 short episodes, CBS pulled the plug. The last 4 episodes of season 1 (filmed) were never even broadcast in the USA. In France, the series was offered on 13ème rue, a few years later (in 2003). For Scott Bakula, this failure marked the end of a period. No longer really a star of the small screen, he has experienced a certain crossing of the desert, chaining together TV films and third roles. Maria Belloshe bounced back immediately afterwards in EMERGENCIES.
The pilot of Mr & Mrs Smith 1996 is fully available on YouTube:
