Netflix has added the David Schwimmer spy comedy Intelligence, which critics largely loathed while fans enjoyed.
The Friends star swaps New York for Cheltenham as he plays Jerry, an intelligence expert from the American National Security Agency who is sent to the UK to help his British counterparts fight cybercrime. However, his brash behaviour is soon winding up his British colleagues in the series, which was originally shown on Sky and is now available on Netflix in the UK (it's not available in the US).
Talking at the time about the setup, Schwimmer said: "Jerry is an ignorant and pompous guy. He thinks the US is No.1 in every aspect and that GCHQ is years behind the NSA. He's not incredibly intelligent, but he’s got a lot of charisma and self-belief."
He added: "I love the fact that the series is set in GCHQ, which is the less glamorous side of spying. If MI5 and MI6 are quite James Bond-like, GCHQ is a lot of sitting at your desk, looking at computers and analyzing data. But there's a nice juxtaposition between how mundane their lives are and the high-stakes issues they're dealing with."
Intelligence also features Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed, who created the series and plays nerdy computer analyst Joseph. Schwimmer agreed to be in the show after working with Mohammed on a Channel 4 pilot called Morning Has Broken. "It never got made, but we spent a week doing all this improvised comedy and became good friends,” recalled the star. "Then nine months later, Nick emailed me with his idea for Intelligence. The pace and dialogue remind me of Veep, but it's also character-driven like The Office."
Intelligence, which ran for two seasons failed to win many critics over, with The Guardian complaining that "Schwimmer's talents are wasted". However, the comedy has a solid 76 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Essentially if you love David Schwimmer as Ross Geller in Friends, Intelligence has to be worth a try.
Netflix continues to be a great place to catch up on British shows you might have missed or, in the case of Sky shows, don’t have access to because you're not signed up. This week Netflix has also added the Sky drama Temple, which stars Mark Strong as a surgeon who sets up a secret medical facility under a London tube station.
Intelligence and Temple are on Netflix now in the UK.
