This is the sequel to 2008's 'The Devil's Whore' which had a starry cast (Andrea Riseborough, Dominic West, John Simm, Michael Fassbender, Maxine Peake and Peter Capaldi, to name a few) and some well-phrased moments but was essentially a missed opportunity for original historical drama. Freed from the constraints of a source text or a biopic, it featured a fictional character living through the turbulent years of the English Civil War, but the heroine, Angelica Fanshawe (then Andrea Riseborough, now Eve Best) took an improbably romantic journey through every major issue and player of the day. The original drama left her back in her ancestral home, with a new baby daughter and an enlightened view of the world.
So, this wasn't exactly eagerly anticipated by us, and the synopsis of two parallel (and inevitable) romances taking place in England and America seemed to be aimed squarely at fans of Philippa Gregory. Those fans won't have been disappointed. Everyone looks impossibly lovely and clean (Dornan is a model, and with 'The Fall' is the only recognisable actor here, although Hope is played by Jane Campion's daughter Alice Englert and Freya Mavor (Beth) was previously in the adaptation of Gregory's 'The White Queen'). Both 'worlds', England and Massachussetts, are depicted as lands of fierce struggle, against which backdrop our two pairs of lovers experience the sort of 'their eyes met...' epiphanies that have them changing the course of their lives in mere minutes. There is clumsy exposition, to explain the back story, and equally clumsy visual symbolism with white nighties, fresh and copious blood, dark woods and bedraggled heroines. The American chapter is basically a 'first of the Mohicans', complete with the spectacular, deliberate fall from a cliff and a scalping.
Most disappointing of all is the childlike black and white depiction of the English Civil Wars as simple struggles by the liberal and the poor against a wicked tyrant King who wants to rule without Parliament. Charles II may have been other than a Merry Monarch to many of his subjects, but he's portrayed here as a virtual Caligula. This seemed to have more in common with 'The Musketeers' than any serious adult drama, not least the very 21st Century women who take up arms and pursue their men with the zest of post-sexual revolution feminists. Hard to believe that Flannery was responsible for 'Our Friends in the North'.
The new 'Spooks'? Well superficially it's similar, with espionage, pretty leads, and pretty spectacular fight and action sequences. It also has similarities with 'Homeland' and 'Ashes to Ashes'. Yes folks, our heroine has issues, and a troubled past. She also survives two potentially fatal gunshot wounds in the first fifteen minutes.
Programmes like this are grist to our mill, fodder to our cannon and sitting ducks to our fairground rifle range. It's surprising that commissioning editors thought this was anything but one whopping TWNH. I admit that the average trainload on the 11.43 from Scunthorpe probably love this (and for Scunthorpe, read Anytown, UK). It's the eternally popular po-faced, we've-only-three-minutes-to-save-the-world combination of violence, sex and unbelievable setups that forms a staple of prime-time TV these days.
Sam (Melissa George) is our first TWNH. In her twenties, smart, adored by men, able to kick ass in a way that would trounce James Bond and fearless enough to swat a gun out of a man's hand without a second thought. She's the smartest operative in a global, upmarket private security firm; the sort that has boardrooms with touchscreen desks and no windows. Likely?
Most of the first episode is about her, pouting like she'd sucked her dummy well into adolescence and had only recently thrown it away. She wants to find out who wanted to kill her and made her lose her baby. It could be her boyfriend, who works alongside her, or did until she went AWOL for a year. Likely?
She's back now and despite her boss looking daggers and spitting trite dialogue at her, she walks straight back into an op. Likely?
Her second honey trap of the episode is the op that will presumably form the main plot of the series. She's given a backstory of bereaved American mother - despite being Australian and playing Sam as English - and thrown literally into the role of saviour of her target's son. Her target happens to be, in turn, the son of a rich gangster and they're all living in paranoid purdah in Regent's Park. Yet, with this one staged rescue act, Sam, aka 'Miss Kent', gets an invitation to live in the hideous house with the Turner crime mob. Likely?
Remember, though, that everyone's grey. Sam and her team are essentially mercenaries, and we're not convinced they're worth caring about. We're set up with all the usual hooks: will she rescue the boy? Fall in love with his father? Discover who set her up? Retire into the sunset with her boyfriend? Kill her boyfriend? Who can she trust? Are her boss and colleagues on the level? Unlikely.
