With so many of us planning to fly this holiday season, Netflix’s explosive thriller – evoking memories of “Die Hard” – “Carry-On” couldn’t be timelier.

It’s Christmas Eve at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) and the rush is on. Thousands of travelers are loading their bags onto conveyor belts, eager to pass through security and board their designated flights.

For 30 year-old Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton) and his unexpectedly pregnant girl-friend Nora (Sofia Carson) it’s a celebratory day. After being rejected at the police academy, Ethan’s been working as a low-level TSA agent just so he can have lunch every day with Nora, a supervisor at the same terminal.

Meanwhile, a mysterious Traveler (Jason Bateman) is determined to get a dangerous bag through LAX security. To make sure all goes as planned, he has a sniper (Theo Rossi) remotely ‘watching’ from a stolen van in the nearby garage.

After switching shifts with a colleague, hoping to secure a promotion, unsuspecting Ethan is told to listen carefully to menacing instructions given through a discreet earbud dropped off at his screening station.

When a particular black bag adorned with a red ribbon passes through his x-ray scanner, “All you have to do…is nothing,” he’s told. If Ethan doesn’t comply, Nora’s life is threatened, along with everyone else in the airport. 

At the same time, the LAPD has been alerted to a mysterious fire which is being investigated by detective Elena Cole (Danielle Deadwyler) who somehow ties it to the treacherous plot unfolding at LAX.

Formulaically scripted by T.J. Fixman, duly directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (“Non-Stop,” “The Shallows”), and expertly photographed by Lyle Vincent, this is a sleek, suspenseful surveillance story with exciting chase scenes staged throughout the airport and deep into the bowels of baggage sorting.

Like making amiable Hugh Grant a psychotic killer in “Heretic,” designating likeable Jason Bateman as the villain is clever casting. And Taron Egerton delivers on the ‘leading man’ promise he showed in “Kingsman.”

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Carry-On” is an escapist, stressful 7, streaming on Netflix.

Combine CIA secrets with undercover espionage and toss in some big-name studs and you should have an intriguing new spy series, right? Unfortunately with “The Agency,” it doesn’t add up.

Using the code name ‘Martian,’ Michael Fassbender plays a world-weary CIA field agent abruptly summoned from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to his London base after six years of undercover work, leaving behind his lover, activist Sami Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith).

After Martian connects with his Zoom handler Naomi (Katherine Waterson), he’s passed along to Henry (Jeffrey Wright), who tells him the Cold War is back, and then to the British station chief Bosko (Richard Gere), who answers only to Langley. 

There’s a definite hierarchy here.

“There are 170,000 words in the English language,” declares Bosko. “Each year 2,000 of them become obsolete; they enter the great verbal bathtub of our collective being. Presently circling around that open drain are these words: stoicism, fortitude, duty, honor, sacrifice.”

Who talks like that?

Not Danny (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), a new recruit on her first assignment. “There’s a cost for doing this work,” she’s told. “A price. Are you sure you want to pay it?”

Meanwhile, a CIA-asset called ‘Coyote’ has disappeared in Belarus and, because he’s a reformed alcoholic, he may have been tortured/forced to drink liquor which would cause him to spill confidential information during an interrogation. 

More complications arise when Dr. Rachel Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris) arrives from Langley “to evaluate mental health across the department.” 

That’s understandable since everyone seems disgruntled. Martian soon discovers that his flat has been bugged, and he resents that he’s being tailed as he copes with his teenage daughter, Poppy (India Fowler). Plus, Sami arrives in London.

The first three of 10 episodes dropped on November 29. The series is a remake of the French series “Le Bureau des Legendes” (“The Bureau”), adapted by brothers Jez & John-Henry Butterworth and produced by George Clooney & Grant Heslov.

Inexplicably underwritten and slow-paced, it’s punctuated with predictably chaotic car chases in and out of a shadowy garage, tires skidding…..

On the Granger Gauge, “The Agency” is a clichéd, stagnant, frustrating 4, streaming on Paramount/Showtime.