The Agency

The Agency is an unnamed private organization dedicated to fighting hostile supernatural forces.

Mythology
The Agency appears to be very old. It is housed in a vine-covered stone building, and consists of many dark corridors and shabby rooms. There appear to be many different agents employed by the organization, typically dressed in black.

Run for many years by the mysterious Jakob Resh, the Agency seems constantly embattled with supernatural forces, including vampires, werewolves, ghosts, gremlins, cults, and Parasites. They are typically underfunded and lacking in essential resources. It is a hard life, apparently. Turnover rates are high.

In "Terminus", Jakob Resh dies and is replaced by Agent.

Although only seen once, a Board of Directors is alluded to several times. Jakob hints that these mysterious creatures are actually in charge, although none of the other agents appear to have seen them firsthand. Jakob alone has confronted them. They appear to have unearthly powers.

Behind the Scenes
The Agency was conceived of in 2004 as a vehicle for replacing the ongoing storyline set in the 1995 pilot. The production team decided that a more episodic approach was warranted, given the difficulty of perpetuating a serialized narrative with an institutional and unavoidable turnover of actors graduating. Imagined as a cross between the FBI of The X-Files and the private detective agencies of film noir, The Agency debuted in the eponymous episode 36.

The exterior location chosen was the vine-covered mansion housing the BU Pub on the Boston University campus. Frequent interior locations include basement rooms and corridors in the Myles Standish dormitory.