A hastily assembled bomb, an airliner exploding over Washington, a British Muslim suspect, a Virginia governor using the Patriot Act to round up all British Muslims he can find, a conscientious British ambassador, his number two having a gay affair with a National Security Agency official, a maverick diplomat from Tyrgyztan, a hawkish US Secretary of State and a Falklands War hero on Death Row. Whew!
No wonder the Guardian's Sam Wollaston wrote of last night's first episode of the BBC1 six-parter The State Within: "It's as if they sat down to brainstorm a few ideas, and then at the end of it just decided: "Hey, what the hell, let's just put them all in."" He acknowledged: "It's classily done, and fun. I'm looking forward to finding out how it all pieces together." What did everyone else think?
The Times' Ian Johns, stung once too often by disappointing TV thrillers, said he's learned to love again: "I've not before seen expressed so directly on television the dilemma of trying to balance the interests of British Muslims and our 'special relationship' with the US. So I'll be watching next week."
You know something's a winner when both the Telegraph and the Socialist Worker are enthusing about it. For the Telegraph's Gerard O'Donovan, "The State Within exerts the inexorable grip of a vacuum, sucking viewers through plotholes and credibility gaps with a superslick blend of pace, bafflement and some very nice performances." Andrew Stone, for the Socialist Worker, commended the show's "witty dialogue" but also its "scepticism about the secretive use of state power" and the raising of "enjoyable questions. What, we wonder, is the plot significance of the mercenary making a killing in Baghdad?"
Jason Isaacs (last seen as Lucius Malfoy) was adored as suave British diplomat Mark Brydon. Johns thought he "exuded a brooding integrity worthy of Bob Peck in Edge of Darkness." Wollaston pondered: "TV British ambassadors are always suave and dapper; I wonder if they are in real life." The Independent's Robert Hanks thought he "might have looked out of place if it didn't turn out that our Washington embassy was almost entirely staffed by people only a little less attractive (it must be a shock for foreign diplomats, getting posted here for the first time and discovering the disparity.")
But then Hanks was the only person left so cold by the series' lack of "credibility" that he won't be tuning in next week. "What could it all mean?" he asked. "Alas, I don't care and am unlikely to find out."
Did you see the first episode? Will you be watching the second? Tell us, do.
