This political twaddle leans so far to the Left it’s almost horizontal
An AmericAn megacorporation is secretly channelling millions of dollars to Al Qaeda. A traitorous U. S. general has a private army of assassins to murder marines who stumble on the truth.
And the global media exists as a giant conspiracy to silence noble anti-austerity campaigners who dare to expose capitalist oppression of the masses. Guardian readers who tuned in to Odyssey (BBc2) probably thought it was a documentary. This is the sort of twaddle they lap up.
TV thrillers about war and politics, from classics such as edge Of Darkness to last year’s The Honourable Woman, are often Leftleaning. Odyssey was leaning so far, it was just about horizontal.
Anna Friel, once famous for her lesbian kiss on Brookside, was doing a creditable Transatlantic accent as a translator attached to a special forces unit in mali, West Africa, hunting a terrorist chieftain.
After her team was wiped out in a drone strike ordered by their treacherous commander back at the Pentagon, Anna was captured by muslim paramilitaries. Her only hope of rescue was an anarchist hacker who took a break from protesting at a G8 summit to track her online.
With its strong, unconventional heroine constantly betrayed by the vipers in power, Odyssey is apeing Homeland. But unlike that subtle and beguiling series, this one doesn’t trust viewers to follow the action without foot-high subtitles. The plot is spelled out so bluntly it might as well come with an instruction manual.
The male lead was a lawyer-turned-bank investigator played by Peter Facinelli, best known for the medical satire nurse Jackie. We met him with his wife, who told him over breakfast: ‘Honey, you have a real good job, we just brought this house, we’ve got a kid at private school . . .’
‘i know that!’ snapped Peter, which was a relief to hear. He wouldn’t be much of a hero if he couldn’t remember who he was.
The dialogue might be dire, but this 13-part series, first shown earlier this year on nBc in the States, does look good. The scenes in Africa, with swooping aerial shots of red mud towns, and death squads stalking dusty night-time streets with lasersighted rifles, were big budget — so ostentatious the producers might as well have left the price tag on.
Friel was unexpectedly good. The 38-year-old actress prepared for the role with a personal trainer who was a garrison sergeant-major in Afghanistan, and who taught her how to push her body through the pain barrier.
it shows: by the time she had been blown up, stitched up, beaten up and dumped in a desert dungeon, Anna’s agonies were painfully convincing. But then the script would drop another clunker and we’d wince for a different reason.
Sheridan Smith was soaking up punishment, too, in Black Work (iTV). She started the second episode as Pc Jo Gillespie with blood pouring from a head wound, after commiting the classic cliffhanger mistake last week of creeping alone round a deserted cottage on the moors. She spent the next hour in tears, in trouble or in shock.
Her boss popped round to tell her that her dead husband ryan was a wrong ’un. Her stepson attacked her with a tennis racket. And the woman at a burger van announced she was ryan’s lover and had his child to prove it.
it’s only a few weeks since we watched Sheridan dying from cancer in The c Word. She can’t stop tearing herself apart on screen.
in truth, Black Work is a humdrum police drama, muddled and forgettable, but the central performance transforms it. Ask yourself how many male actors can match half of Sheridan’s emotional range and you’ll come up with a very short list indeed.
Phil Davis delivered a menacing cameo as the detective inspector who warned Pc Jo to stop asking awkward questions about her husband’s death, if she didn’t want her children to have nasty accidents, too.
He was so openly villainous that we can be confident he’s the only officer on the force who definitely isn’t ryan’s killer. All the other coppers look dodgy. Sheridan’s tears aren’t over yet.