‘State of Affairs’ often silly political nail biter

Apparently, NBC clicked its high heels three times and chanted, “There’s no place like ‘Homeland,’” before casting Katherine Heigl (“Grey’s Anatomy”) in the new political thriller “State of Affairs” (9 p.m., WMC-TV Channel 5).

Not unlike this season’s opener of “Homeland,” “Affairs” kicks off with a horrific firefight in a terror zone, which Charleston Tucker (Heigl) barely escapes.

And, like “Homeland,” Charleston’s romantic and emotional attachments muddy the waters of her judgment.

While Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) can compartmentalize (or at least medicate) her ragged feelings on “Homeland,” Charleston is still wrestling her demons one year after the traumatic attack. She’s having fights with her therapist and drowning her sorrows with alcohol when not picking up men so she can have casual affairs in a state of undress.

After some moments of wanton behavior, she’s seen leaving for her job at 2 a.m. to work at the CIA, preparing the Daily Briefing book for the president.

“Affairs” does offer a number of plot twists, bureaucratic back-stabbings and surprises. But at the end of the day, or at least the pilot, it falls back on the old “24” motif — the notion that, in a world filled with terror threats, the real mysteries lie within the president’s (Alfre Woodard) own inner circle, or even her family.

For all of the running around and nail-biting tension, “Affairs” often falls back on tedious procedural slog that better shows (like “24” and “Homeland”) learned to avoid. We spend a lot of time watching operatives click keyboards, or worse, watching them knit their brows as they look at a TV screen while reports of grim kidnappings and terror acts show up on CIA feeds or Al Jazeera.

It’s hard to outdo the preposterousness of CBS’ “Scorpion” in the cloak-anddagger department. It may be completely ridiculous, but it’s rarely boring. The same can’t be said of the frequently ludicrous “State of Affairs.”