"Covert Affairs" is Canceled

I saw an article recently that said there would be a sale of properties from the recently canceled series Covert Affairs.
This was somewhat sad news for me. I had watched this series from its first season, and there were a couple of reasons why:

Piper Perabo
I've been intrigued by this lovely actress ever since seeing the (original) poster for the movie Lost and Delirious - a group shot of the entire cast. I was enchanted by the big, questioning eyes and wide, sensuous lips of this girl, before I even knew her name. To be honest, I've never even seen the movie, but her face in that poster stuck with me for years.
Here's a still (from Covert Affairs) that is similar to that first image I had of her:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3287449856/nm0005305/

She had done quite a few movies since then, including Coyote Ugly (didn't see it) and The Prestige (saw it), so when I found out about this series, I wanted to check it out.
I won't review the series or anything, but suffice to say, if I hadn't enjoyed it, I wouldn't have stuck with it for five seasons. I particularly admired the last couple of seasons (when, interestingly enough, Ms. Perabo herself was one of the executive producers), as the series took a darker, grittier turn, and there was more intensity and violence than before. So, to see her character, Annie Walker, described merely as "sassy" in the article above was rather annoying.
I remember her recent turn in Looper, also (again, a small role), and will be interested to find out what the future holds for Piper Perabo.

(Unrelated: I also enjoyed the quirky touch of titling individual episodes with song titles from rockers like Led Zeppelin, REM and David Bowie.)


Now, on to the second reason I enjoyed the show:

Toronto Plays Every City

University Ave. (at Queen W.) stands in for Constitution Ave. In Washington DC, for an episode in the last season.

I'm pretty familiar with this city by now, and it's fun to watch an episode of Covert Affairs or, say, Beauty and the Beast, and play "spot the location." Toronto has stood in for New York City, Washington DC, Boston, even Paris! I was delighted by one scene where Annie Walker enters the Louvre by the I.M. Pei pyramid entrance (a place I'm lucky to have been to myself), and when she gets inside, it's one of the rooms in the Art Gallery of Ontario! The magic of editing...
Or, when she enters a convention centre in Stockholm, Sweden, and the interior is the Four Seasons Centre; when a subway station and pedestrian overpass in Essen, Germany are actually the Yorkdale station; or when she's driving along a street, apparently in Washington DC, and a TTC streetcar is visible through the passenger window!
I could go on, but you get the point (I'll probably talk more about this phenomenon in future postings).

In summary, I'm sorry to see this series end. It got to be a habit with me to watch it (even catching most of one season online), and I'll miss seeing Annie, Augie, Joan and the rest. Good luck to all involved.