CBS’ Intelligence Casts A Shirtless Josh Holloway As The Vitruvian Man

By Nick Venable | Published 10 years ago

Even though it used to air shows like The Twilight Zone and Lost in Space, CBS is a network that has never been one to fully embrace the science fiction genre. Its most recent attempt — the Stephen King adaptation Under the Dome, barely delved into the actual sci-fi, preferring instead to focus on terrible plotting and childlike performances. So when they first unveiled their upcoming series Intelligence, I was skeptical at best and completely uninterested at worst. But a month away from its premiere, I find myself eagerly anticipating it in a way that I usually reserve for any network other than CBS. And while the poster above isn’t exactly the most exciting, at least the reference it makes is brainier than the average shot of the cast standing around looking smugly pensive.

For the poster, star Josh Holloway (Lost) is posing as if he were the Vitruvian Man, the Leonardo da Vinci sketch that mapped out human proportions and nailed down a basic interpretation of how a perfect human specimen’s measurements could be figured out, as originally described by the Roman architect and author Vitruvius. They’ve wisely chosen to give Holloway pants for the image, though they do keep him shirtless, which will no doubt make some of his more vivacious fans happy. Aside from this body doubling, the rest of the poster contains a lot of informational riffraff scattered around, such as a Wanted poster for Jin Cong (Will Yun Lee), a rocket launcher-looking weapon, and other schematical imagery.

Holloway stars as Gabriel, a badass intelligence operative who not only plays by his own rules (of course), but he has been implanted with a computer chip that allows him to tap into the global information grid. While most of us use our computers and phones to send, receive, and learn information, Gabriel can do it all inside his own head. The cyber-security agency’s director Lillian Strand (Marg Helgenberger) assigns Secret Service agent Riley Neal (Meghan Ory) to protect Gabriel, which just means she’s putting her own life at risk since Gabriel has a habit of getting into dangerous situations. I hear that’s what happens when the Internet is behind your eyeballs; that or you dehydrate from watching too much porn.

While it isn’t clear exactly whether or not the show is going to focus on a single overarching plot or if it will be more of a procedural, you can get a good idea of what to expect from the extended preview below. Intelligence will debut on Tuesday, January 7. Will you be watching? Gabriel will know.

---