Every so often, I come across an actor that I think is way too talented for the work I’ve found them in. Jason Isaacs was someone I first saw in Armageddon way back when. He played the NASA scientist who figures out how to stop the asteroid and has one of the best lines in the whole movie: “I know the presidents’chief scientific advisor, we were at MIT together. And, in a situation like this, you-you really don’t wanna take the advice from a man who got a C minus in astrophysics. The presidents’advisors are… wrong. I’m right.” The man just oozed smarmy badass-ness. Slowly, I waited for him to pop up in better more meaty parts, but alas he wound up as villains in Harry Potter and The Patriot, never really getting a chance to show off how an intelligent, yet realistic, protagonist could be played well. You can imagine how happy I was to discover the BBC miniseries, The State Within.
The series follows Sir Mark Brydon, British Ambassador to the United States, during his last week in the position. As he is wrapping up the final duties of the office, a terrorist attack on a British airline on US soil sends the country into a panic. Brydon and British Counsellor External Affairs, Nicholas Brokelhurst, both begin to investigate the true purpose behind the attack and its connection to the Secretary of Defense Lynne Warner and her ties to former Haliburton-esque company, Armitage.
If you’re a fan of 24, then you’re already well-aware of construction of the plot of this series: a terrorist attack (or threat of terrorist attack) sets into motion a series of events involving multiple characters and conspiracies in the highest corridors of power with one man leading the charge to save the day. Now here’s the rub: The State Within takes this tired formula that could have been used for any countlessly pointless seasons of 24 and not only compresses it to 6 episodes (thus saving on needless plot threads), but also makes every character believable and interesting. I recommend this series to anyone that wants a little intelligence with their political action thrillers and some surprising twists on classic characters. Now if only we could have something like this produced in the US…
