By Steve Pond

The Paramount+/Showtime series “The Agency,” produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov and based on the French series “Le Bureau des Légendes,” is a classic spy thriller set in the London office of the Central Intelligence Agency — a flip side of “Slow Horses” where everybody’s very good at what they do, but the intrigue mounts, the global machinations get more complex and the fate of international relations hangs in the balance.

Michael Fassbender plays Brandon Colby, a top CIA operative better known as “Martian” who’s been summoned back to the organization’s London office after years of living undercover in Africa; Jeffrey Wright is Henry Ogletree, the CIA London Deputy Station Chief; Richard Gere is James Bradley, the London Station Chief who reports to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia; and Jodie Turner-Smith is Dr. Samia Fatima “Sami” Zahir, who was in a relationship with Martian when he was stationed in Africa and shows up unexpectedly in London, forcing him to hide his continuing interest in her.