Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Agents Of Mystery’ On Netflix, Where Six Korean Celebrities Become Fake Secret Agents

In the South Korean reality series Agents Of Mystery, six celebrities become “agents” of an organization called the X Investigation Network, or XIN. Apparently, XIN can detect something called X-Electric Waves, which helps them find “mysterious phenomena” and pinpoint its location. The celebrities — Lee Yong-jin, John Park, Lee Eun-ji, Lee Hye-ri, Kim Do-hoon, and Karina — are given missions to execute. They are given no prior knowledge of what the show’s creators have set up for them. All they’re given are tiny radios they can use to talk to each other and a camera to take pictures of evidence.

AGENTS OF MYSTERY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes from Season 1 of Agents Of Mystery.

The Gist: In the first mission, the group is given the mission to investigate an abandoned factory owned by a man once accused of kidnapping. Also, three young women with the exact same birthdate have been reported missing, and they may be in that abandoned factory.

The group goes into a “teleport chamber” that is supposed to convey them to the factory. The group is given six hours to complete the mission; the teleport chamber will open after five hours, and any agent that doesn’t use the chamber in the hour it’s available, which will leave them behind at the factory, will be subject to punishment.

When they leave the chamber, which shakes them up as they’re “teleported,” they come upon a room full of blood spatters, maggots and other gross stuff. Out of the slots of a boarded-up window, they see a group of people in white hooded robes shuffling around. Eventually, they find a hole in the wall that’s full of either mud or… something else. When they feel around with their hands, a light goes on. Eventually, they find a switch that opens a secret door, which brings them into a storage room that leads to a prayer room.

In the office/storage room, they find keys and the burned possessions of a journalist. They also try to open the one locked booth in the prayer room. What they don’t anticipate is an overalls-clad worker walking through, and they all scramble to hide.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It feels like Agents Of Mystery is a low-rent version of Mission: Impossible, but as a reality show. It also has the well-coordinated, expansive feel of Zombieverse, another Korean reality series. It also reminds us of the American reality series Stars On Mars.

Our Take: The first season of Agents Of Mystery consists of two missions, each taking up 3 episodes. So at first, when the group of “agents” starts their first mission, it looks like it’s just going to be a group of people in a glorified escape room. But soon, both the group of celebrities and the viewers realize that other people will be involved, and how they react to the people that they encounter in these scenarios will be just as important as their ability to find clues and secret passages.

It’s a fun show because the contestants, mostly actors, comedians and singers, aren’t there to do anything but be fake secret agents. There’s no prize or competition, just the adventure of teaming up to complete a mission. Do they all realize that the missions are fake and the people they’re dealing with are all actors? We would hope so. But they’re up to the challenge and roll along with it, not sitting there being skeptical, which is something that’s always helpful in shows like this.

The producers try their best to make the scenarios as realistic as possible, but some of the setups, like the “teleportation”, might be cheesy on purpose, to keep things light. But they do invest in a lot of extras and actors who have speaking parts. So it’ll be interesting to see how elaborate things get in the second and third episodes of the first mission.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The group open the locked prayer booth and are shocked by what they find.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Lee Run-ji, just because she optimistically wore a white jacket for the first mission.

Most Pilot-y Line: The whole “X-Electric Waves” thing is silly, and isn’t necessary to send these fake agents on fake missions.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Agents Of Mystery is a goofy reality adventure series that doesn’t take itself at all seriously, which is why it’s fun to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.