Just seen the first episode of ‘The Last Enemy’. Sunday night drama has a tradition of being bland, cosy stuff to soften up the wage slaves for the week ahead. Not this. Genuinely thrillling, well-acted and well-written. A challenging drama, not plot-on-a-plate.
‘The Last Enemy’ is set in a dystopian near-future, high-security surveillance society. The security is partly in reaction to a recent atrocity – a major bomb at Victoria – but like other bits of the story, that emerges rather than being presented from the start. Illegal immigrants, CCTV, ID cards, mystery viruses, assassins, Afghan refugee camps, dodgy database consultants and dodgier politicians; all at breakneck pace. Tracing online replaces chasing on wheels. We see the world through the bewildered but intelligent eyes of Stephen Ezard, an OCD-suffering mathematician returned from self-imposed academic exile in China for his brother’s huggy humanist funeral. And locations looked like real London too – wasn’t that the New Orleans estate? I loved it.
The last new drama series I saw – ‘The Palace’ – turned out to be a crass disappointment, not worth blogging about at the time. The young Prince of Wales, suddenly King, is having an affair with the PM’s married chief aide, and no-one knows? Yeah, right.
‘The Last Enemy’ also has a high-powered PM’s PA, actually a senior spook, but that somehow seems more realistic. Or maybe it’s just that this is very superior tosh. Certainly, my Sunday nights are booked from now on.
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