This is what happens when Amazon owns the James Bond franchise. It’s corporate synergy at its finest, and honestly, it’s a winning concept. The fact that they decided to give it to Academy Award nominee Riz Ahmed is one of the better judgment calls they’ve made. Bait asks a fascinating question: what is it actually like to have your name floated as a possible James Bond? How could something like that help your career? How could it hurt it? What does it do to your life when you go from being a relatively unknown actor to suddenly having the entire internet debating whether you should become one of the most iconic characters in cinema? That’s a terrific premise, and one I couldn’t wait to dive into.

Ahmed plays Shah Latif, a struggling actor who lands the audition of a lifetime. Through a little ingenuity, he manages to get himself noticed, earning a callback and suddenly finding himself at the center of an online firestorm. That’s both good and bad. It’s good because he’s still in the running, but it’s bad because people are racist, and a whole lot of them aren’t thrilled by the idea of a British Pakistani actor potentially becoming James Bond. Right off the bat, someone throws a pig’s head into his parents’ home. In a different series, that would’ve been treated as this horrifying dramatic moment. Instead, Bait turns it into something much stranger. The pig’s head starts talking, voiced by Patrick Stewart, becoming Shah’s own personal Jiminy Cricket as he wrestles with his insecurities about fame, success and everything that comes with suddenly being thrust into the spotlight.

There’s also a tremendous amount of culture woven throughout the series because Ahmed very clearly wanted to tell a specific story from a specific point of view. Bait isn’t just about James Bond. It’s about family expectations, racism, religion, identity and what it means to suddenly become a symbol for an entire community whether you wanted that responsibility or not. I appreciated all of that, even if I found myself more interested in everything happening around the Bond audition than Shah’s personal journey.

Conceptually, I love Bait. I love that Amazon took it to Sundance first, got it some buzz there, and then dropped it onto Prime Video. I also think that’s probably part of what helped Riz Ahmed end up with an Emmy nomination because, honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to make the cut this year. The competition was stacked. That’s not me saying he isn’t great here because he is. I just happened to have performances like Jamie Bell in Half Man ranked a little higher. Sometimes there are only so many spots, and somebody good winds up getting left off. This year, for me, that just wasn’t Riz.

Ahmed also gets to play in a lot of different genres throughout the six episodes. There’s one episode that’s designed to feel like it’s unfolding in one continuous shot. There’s another that imagines what it would actually be like if Shah became James Bond. Ironically, those wound up being my favorite parts because they leaned hardest into the central idea. I actually wanted more of that. Once the show started spending more and more time with the talking pig’s head, I felt like it was drifting away from being a satirical look at celebrity, media and casting speculation and becoming more of a character study about Shah’s own mental state.

That’s really where my biggest disappointment comes from. There’s something fascinating about the casting process itself. Every time one of these giant franchises is looking for a new lead, little pieces of information start leaking out through Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter. We hear who’s rumored to be auditioning, who’s made it to screen tests, who’s doing chemistry reads and who’s suddenly become the internet’s favorite choice. We become obsessed with the actors who almost got the part. Bait opens that door, but I don’t think it walks through it nearly enough.

I wanted to see more of that process. I wanted to see Shah screen-testing against other actors. I wanted to see him learning fight choreography, doing chemistry reads, trying to convince producers he could actually be James Bond. I would’ve loved watching the pressure build as the field got smaller and smaller. Instead, the series becomes increasingly interested in peeling apart Shah himself. I understand why. It’s Riz Ahmed’s story to tell, and it’s clearly a very personal one. I just think once we start talking to a pig’s head, we begin losing the thread a little. The show starts moving away from the insanity of potentially becoming James Bond and toward a different kind of comedy that’s much more interested in what’s happening inside Shah’s head.

We’ve become fascinated with casting stories over the years. We know Josh Hutcherson nearly became Spider-Man. We know Hugh Jackman wasn’t the original choice for Wolverine. We know Sean Connery passed on roles like Gandalf and Morpheus. Even recently, a film like Weapons wound up replacing much of its cast when production shifted and actors became unavailable. Audiences love hearing about the people who almost got the role just as much as the people who actually did. That’s what I thought Bait was going to explore, and while it certainly touches on it, I don’t think it goes nearly as deep as it could have.

Part of what makes Bait so interesting is that we’re living through this exact situation right now. There are journalists, critics, bloggers and influencers all trying to read the tea leaves and figure out who the next James Bond is going to be. Everybody has a favorite. Everybody has a theory. The truth is, none of us know. Only the people at Amazon MGM making the next Bond film know who’s actually in contention. That’s what makes Bait feel so timely. It isn’t just exploring a fictional casting process. It’s arriving while audiences are actively waiting to find out who the next 007 will be. I can’t really think of another studio that’s had the opportunity to be this meta. It would be like Warner Bros. making a comedy about somebody auditioning to become the next Batman while everyone online argues about who should get the cape and cowl.

I wanted to like Bait more than I actually did. The audio description is solid, so accessibility certainly wasn’t the issue. I love Riz Ahmed. Sound of Metal remains one of my favorite films, and I still think his performance there is extraordinary. He’s excellent here as well, even if I personally wouldn’t have included him among my six Emmy nominees. That doesn’t mean he isn’t deserving of praise. It just means I’ve watched an awful lot of television this year, and there were a few performances that resonated with me even more.

Bait is only six episodes, so you can easily knock it out in a day or over the course of a weekend. It’s also one of those lightning-in-a-bottle ideas that really only exists because Amazon now owns James Bond and can comment directly on one of its biggest franchises while the world waits for the next movie. It didn’t leave me shaken or stirred, and personally I would’ve left the pig’s head in the garbage can, but there’s still plenty here to appreciate. Even if I don’t think Bait fully capitalizes on its brilliant premise, it’s a unique look at what it might feel like to find yourself standing just one audition away from becoming one of the most iconic characters in movie history.

Fresh:6.4/10