Secret State

Apparently "very loosely based on" 'A Very British Coup', a book previously dramatised with the late Ray McAnally  in 1988.  This seems to have more in common, on the strength of the first episode, with a 1985 film also starring a young Gabriel Byrne, albeit as poacher rather than nominal gamekeeper, 'Defence of the Realm'.  One of those stodgy, ponderous, chase-the-zeitgeist conspiracy thrillers that thrive on shots of the scared and sinister in the corridors of power and dingy back-alley rendezvous.  This has the usual cast of characters.  Gabriel Byrne is Tom Dawkins, Deputy Prime Minister who finds himself in very deep, dark waters after an explosion at the Petrofex chemical plant and the death of the Prime Minister, Charles Flyte (Tobias Menzies) in a mysterious plane crash.  Yes, nice mix of Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte to represent the establishment.  A host of known faces portray the other usual characters: Charles Dance, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Lia Williams and Rupert Graves as shadowy, power-hungry ministers; Gina McKee as the journalist investigating corruption and cover-ups; Douglas Hodge as the jaded, alcoholic ex-MI5er.

Tom has a a history as a soldier in Bosnia and a self-possessed, bruised ex-wife (Sophie Ward).  After faltering faith in the government, a new poll suggests that he is a popular new leader, which makes his colleagues wary and even more distrustful of him.  Unknown to him, GCHQ are listening in to his every conversation with both the press and the pathologist, who has found high levels of toxicity in the explosion victims, and ends up hanging from the ceiling of his lab.

Worth watching just for Byrne's craggy face, which holds such gravitas it wouldn't be out of place on Mount Rushmore.  Also great to see Ruth Negga back onscreen after her revelatory tour-de-force as Shirley Bassey.  As for the story, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be sure that greed and self-interest frequently outweigh any nobler and compassionate concerns where global corporations and elements of government are concerned.  It's just a wonder that after having been a cliche for so long, it's still in the news as well as drama, and accepted by a voting public.

Hunted

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.

Murder

Good things can come in small packages.  The formulaic procedural may suffer from being squashed into an hour or less, but this was taut, spare and intense.  No cops deliberating over paper-cupped coffee and donuts; no question of suicide or accidental death and no strangers lurking in the shadows.  Instead, two suspects, one of whom is the victim's sister, and a mere handful of others involved in the case, talk directly to camera from Day 1 to Day 115 of a murder inquiry and trial, and finally we are taken back to Day 0.

There are enough revelations about the characters and events in question to make this something like viewing the heavily-edited highlights of police interviews and court proceedings.  Lines and images are repeated to almost poetic effect.  The sad truth is something the viewer is privileged to learn while the jury, the police and the public are not.  So, far from being a TWNH, it's very much like real cases, where the truth evades and only ambiguities, complex emotions and chaotic lives remain.

Joe Dempsie and Karla Crome should be headed for BAFTAs.  Could we not only see more of them, but also more of these risk-taking dramas please?  BBC2 clearly considered it a risk; with no established names to promote it they puffed it as '... from the director of 'The Killing''.  No disrespect to Birger Larsen, whose work on both this and the Danish series is wonderful, but Robert Jones's script and all the performances were good enough to stand out without a peg.  We'd watch something of this standard with only untried talent attached: isn't that what commissioners are paid for?