The focus throughout is video surveillance - specifically how, and if, it can be misleading or tampered with to make something that didn’t really happen appear to be the case.
I’m specifically reviewing the first series - I haven’t started the second yet, but will give it its own review. The focus initially is a soldier accused of killing someone without the need to do so in Afghanistan. (This was why I didn’t watch the series when it first came out as I tend to avoid military topics.) But although the soldier in question becomes a major character throughout, it isn’t really his story.
It was clever and did more than entertain, really giving the viewer an opportunity to think about the underlying moral dilemma (the details will have to wait until after the spoiler alert). The other main character, a fast-tracked female DI, temporarily assigned from SO15 (counter terrorism) to murder was well filled by Holiday Grainger, emphasising both the initial resentment of her by the team and her sometimes ruthless urge to get on, as the negative balance to her positive unwillingness to let go, even when ordered to do so.
— SPOILER ALERT —
The most unlikely thing for me was that to make the whole thing work required not one, but two conspiracies. Firstly there was the CIA/MI5/SO15 grouping referred to as Correction and secondly a more unlikely grouping of human rights activists, who decide to use the mechanism employed by Correction to show that a terrorist’s conviction relied on fake video evidence. This did make for some intriguing twists, but seemed one conspiracy too far.
The Correction aspect was also overplayed in the sense that the CIA outfit particularly seemed far too effective. But this is where the moral dilemma card is played, even if it seems highly unlikely in practice. The Correction involves faking video evidence to convict terrorists when the security services know that they are guilty, but this knowledge is based on data that can’t be used in court. The details seemed a little hazy - it would only be theoretically justifiable if things like communication intercepts were always inadmissible, which I didn’t think was the case.
The other other-the-top aspect was the way that the security services reacted to the fake video produced (with extremely unlikely skill) by the human rights activists - the botched and extreme measures taken seemed logically unnecessary. I’d also say that the soldier’s introduction to the activists was like something out of Poliakoff’s excellent fantasy The Tribe - it was far too slick for the reality of who they were.
So, a lot of stretching of likeliness is needed to make this work - but it's worth it, both for the gripping drama and the possibility that something like this might be done, whether by security services or rogue states.
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