The 6 Worst Spy Shows of All Time, Ranked

Published Oct 4, 2026, 7:05 AM EDT

Chris is a UK-based film and TV writer, editor and occasional filmmaker. For more than a decade, he has written news, reviews and features covering movies, television and pop culture. He has also made short films and worked in video production, giving him experience on both sides of the screen. Chris runs the We Love Movies More Than You TikTok channel and has a particular interest in overlooked and short-lived TV shows.

The dangerous world of spies has given TV audiences everything from action-packed thrillers like Alias and 24 to more grounded, darkly humorous offerings like Slow Horses. While those rank among the best TV spy shows, not every new addition can reach the point where every episode is a masterpiece.

Whether through network meddling, ill-advised reboots or wasted concepts that failed to go anywhere interesting, none of the shows on this list were destined for greatness. In most cases, they were swiftly canceled, and a couple had completed episodes that were never aired. These contenders for the worst spy TV shows wouldn’t be fit to walk the corridors of Slough House.

6 'Taken' (2017-2018)

Image via NBC

The origin of Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills and his particular set of skills are confusingly explored in this NBC prequel to the Taken trilogy. The show makes the jarring decision to set the young adventures of Mills (Clive Standen) in the present day—a choice that undermines any sense of origin or connection to the franchise. The pilot gives the former Green Beret a murdered sister to avenge using his already impressive skill set. That may sound like Taken, but Mills’ one-man war swiftly ends when he’s recruited into a covert intelligence team run by Christina Hart (Jennifer Beals).

Showrunner Alexander Cary (Homeland) described it as less of a prequel and more of a “modern origin story”. What it ends up being is a mostly in-name reimagining of a movie character that adds nothing to the story. Taken deserved better than a standard procedural format. Mills is reduced to a team member in a show that has no real identity of its own. Against the odds, NBC picked it up for a second season and made drastic changes, replacing showrunner Cary with Greg Plageman (Person of Interest) and axing the supporting cast, with only Standen and Beals returning. The changes didn’t have the desired effect, and the show was canceled after its second season.

5 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (1996)

Image via CBS

Despite the same title and basic premise, this Mr. & Mrs. Smith is unrelated to both the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movie and Prime Video’s series with Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. In this CBS caper, Scott Bakula and Maria Bello play two rival agents who become partners after a secret agency known as The Factory recruits them. Sent on a series of missions posing as a married couple, the show tries hard to be a sexy espionage comedy and puts them in increasingly romantic situations.

The will-they-won’t-they tension feels forced, and their assignments get repetitive quickly, but the show’s failings don’t entirely sit with the creators John J. Sakmar and Kerry Lenhart. They were aiming for something a little more grown-up, but network interference left Mr. & Mrs. Smith stuck between light, frothy comedy and harder-edged drama. Only nine of the 13 produced episodes aired, and somehow CBS still showed them out of chronological order, which only added to audience confusion. The idea behind Mr. & Mrs. Smith was good enough to revisit later, but the first attempt was messy, and the network’s treatment turned it into a missed opportunity.

4 'Secret Invasion' (2023)

Image via Disney+

Marvel fans might have been disappointed that Secret Invasion didn’t get a faithful adaptation of the comic book, but the Disney+ miniseries was a letdown for entirely different reasons. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to Earth to stop an army of rogue shapeshifting Skrulls led by Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), who has his forces infiltrating the highest levels of government. This could have followed in the footsteps of Captain America: The Winter Soldier by making another old-fashioned spy thriller within the MCU. Secret Invasion has all the elements, yet the show does so little with them to build any tension or surprises.

A slow pace and an almost immediate reveal of the Skrulls’ plan kill any possibility of the taut, paranoid thriller that creator Kyle Bradstreet (Mr. Robot) was trying for. Worse still, the show underserved Emilia Clarke's G'iah, the long-serving Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) to frustrating effect. Its shortcomings aside, Secret Invasion does one thing right and brings Olivia Colman into the MCU as the brilliant yet eccentric MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth. For all its promises of a grounded conspiracy series, the finale abandons that for an embarrassing superpowered punch-up.

3 'True Lies' (2023)

Image via CBS

The TV reboot of True Lies from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix is essentially a reimagined sequel to James Cameron’s action blockbuster. The pilot quickly covers the basics. Helen Tasker (Ginger Gonzaga) grows mistrustful of her husband, Harry (Steve Howey). Unbeknownst to her, Harry’s an international spy who has been lying to her for years. By the time the credits roll on the first episode, Helen knows the truth, and the story ends similarly to the movie with Omega Sector recruiting her.

True Lies remains one of the best action movies of the 1990s. It might not have aged well in every regard, but stripping the TV version of its central lie and replacing it with bickering married spies robs the series of the chance to explore that premise in the present day. Instead, the mission-of-the-week format helps Harry and Helen resolve some of their marital issues, which frequently take up more screen time than they should. Howey and Gonzaga have genuine chemistry, and there's a fun guest spot for True Lies co-star Tom Arnold (in a different role), but the show can't escape being another failed TV show based on a hit movie.

2 'The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.' (1966-1967)

image via NBC

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was already past its prime when it launched the imaginatively titled spin-off, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. In principle, a female-led offshoot was a good idea; the times were slowly changing, and television was starting to reflect that. Stefanie Powers plays April Dancer, a highly trained U.N.C.L.E. agent who joins the fight against the villainous organization THRUSH. Clearly, NBC was torn over the show it ordered since April isn’t allowed to drive much of the action and needs saving more than a lead character should.

Her partner, Mark Slate (Noel Harrison), handles most of the fisticuffs, but she occasionally gets a gadget that comes in handy, like a lipstick gun. The show becomes harder to defend as a product of its time because The Avengers (the British one) and the Burke’s Law spin-off Honey West did a far better job of portraying their female leads as capable protagonists. As campy and exaggerated as The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. might be, it didn’t need to reduce its main character to parody-level incompetence. NBC canceled the show after its single season of 29 episodes, and a year later, in 1968, called time on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

1 'Charlie's Angels' (2011)

Imagie via ABC

After the two movies with Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu, Charlie’s Angels returned to TV with one of the worst reboots of all time. Developed by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville), the 2011 reboot kicks off with the team on a mission that leads to the death of one of the Angels. Little time is wasted before her replacement is recruited by the heard-but-never-seen Charlie (voiced by Victor Garber), and the Angels take down a gang of human traffickers in Miami.

Even with Drew Barrymore as an executive producer, it’s a struggle to understand how this version got a series order. The reboot is clearly trying to be more serious than its predecessors, which makes its attempts at lighthearted comedy disastrously ineffective. More damaging than its mismatched tone is the complete lack of chemistry among the Angels, played by Minka Kelly, Annie Ilonzeh, and Rachael Taylor. Throughout all incarnations of Charlie’s Angels, a believable bond between the trio has remained the most important ingredient. At no time during the reboot’s short run does it successfully convince the audience of that. ABC decided to retire Charlie’s Angels from active duty after four episodes had aired, while eight were produced; the finale was never shown on television in the U.S.

Charlie's Angels

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  Annie Ilonzeh

  Nestor Rodrigo / Pajaro

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  Frankie Han

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  Zoe Sinclair

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  Detective Bradley Dumont