Saturday 21 November

BLOGS

blogCategory
Previous
Back to blog
Next

The Last Enemy

Benedict Cumberbatch in The Last Enemy
  • Posted at 3:36pm
  • 21 February 2008
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 8 comments

Call it mean, call it cynical, but The Last Enemy has very quickly become The Last Turkey in my tormented, overheated, TV-sated brain.

Gawd, it's dull, I think because British television is just rubbish at thrillers. Paul Abbott's State of Play, waaaaaay back in 2003 (and now being made into a Hollywood film), was the last truly good Brit example of the genre. And before that? Mmm, probably Edge of Darkness. And that was 1985.

We can't do thrillers because they demand pace, speed and plot-driven action. We, on the other hand, allow our dramas - and not just thrillers - to become bogged down by characterisation. Thus audiences are clobbered about the head with endless, tedious diversions about why character X behaves as he does, and why character Y wants to sleep with him. Throw in a few car chases and, hey-ho, you've got a thriller. Or, worse, a "psychological thriller" (which usually means everyone talks a lot and it's not thrilling at all).

The Last Enemy is a political thriller with an unforgivably dreary and uncharismatic hero, a geeky maths genius who wears terrible trousers and has few social skills but, boy, is he a hit with the girls, who all but queue up to shrug off their jeans for him. He's played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who's a good actor, but not a dynamic leading man.

Much of The Last Enemy, including poor Geraldine James's Sideshow Bob hairdo, is laughable. When you can understand it, that is, as it is needlessly and pointlessly complicated. I have little to no idea of who's doing what or why. Worse, I don't care. But I do enjoy its unintentional comedy moments: so far my favourites have been the Tom and Jerry scenes where hapless Benedict's character is comedy-whacked over the head when he enters a room. You can just see it coming. Sadly, he can't.

The Last Enemy's many shortcomings are shown up by the brilliant Damages, which manages to be thrilling and packed with characters who, though horrible, are utterly believable, while action is not sacrificed to the dreaded "characterisation".

What I love about Damages is that it wrong-foots its audience at every turn. Just when you think you've grasped what's going on, the writers plant a tiny land mine in the script and…boom! There's no better performance currently on television than that of Glenn Close as the astonishingly amoral lawyer Patty Hewes. Just smell the sulphur whenever she's on screen. I'm pretty sure she's the devil.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

Link to this post
Post a comment | 8 comments

Comments

  • Posted on 17 August 2009
  • at 2:03am
  • by stephen

yes, would love to know the name/artist of the ending song of the final episode.

  • Posted on 10 August 2009
  • at 6:28am
  • by rosie

If you lived here in Australia you'd thank god like I do for the BBC dramas like The Last Enemy and our own multicultural SBS programs. The alternatives are mindless slick solve-everything-and cook-dinner-in-under-an-hour rubbish on the commercial stations. Save me!

  • Posted on 16 May 2009
  • at 4:04pm
  • by seaboots

excellent series, would love to know the name of the song during the final scene of the final episode ( 2nd series )

  • Posted on 11 March 2008
  • at 1:33pm
  • by Antithesis

Once again Ms Graham heaps praise on a facile and formulaic US drama at the expense of a well-executed and engagingly-paced home-grown drama. I've found The Last Enemy consistently watchable since it began, and I'm looking forward to the conclusion. I abandoned Damages at some point around the 3rd episode.

The Last Enemy requires atttention, intelligence and awareness. Damages does not, or at least, not to the same extent. Slick and glossy does not equate with quality and intelligence; it's just slick and glossy.As far as recent political thrillers go, Alison glaringly omits The State Within from her highly selective list of UK dramas. Probably too little made obvious from the outset, and too multi-layered and convoluted.Pacing isn't the problem; it's inattentiveness and impatience on the part of the reviewer that is at fault.

  • Posted on 25 February 2008
  • at 5:10pm
  • by garydchance

The end of Ms Graham's comment about this week's episode was accurate and perfect: "I have no idea what's going on, but I suspect it's something Spooks would dispense with in a third of the time, and with a lot more style." While I cannot agree with the two posted comments above, I side more with Ms Graham's comments although with some reservations. She does have this one described correctly, and I'll be looking forward to watching "Damages" tonight. Thanks for the tip.

I must admit to identifying her elements of "charm" which emerge. The one that tickled me was the heavy from central casting who entered the hotel room just after his arrival to turn down the bed and polish his shoes overnight. This was heavy in multiple ways and laughable.

Then after spending an "electrifying" night out barefoot, he returns to find his shoes outside his door. Did you note the squishing sound on the sound track from his shoe as he departed? This is another hoot which is supposed to clue the audience about the hole now gouged in the heel of his shoe which he fails to note entirely.

And, for this we pay a licence fee?

It just so happens that I've been writing a bit about "The Last Enemy" from my own experience's perspective and provide a link here should anyone care to read it thus saving space here:

I have a problem with the suppression of creativity which emerges in this series about which I wrote last week. It just so happened that The Last Enemy provided an excellent example of this following Peter Berry's own comments on the BBC's web site. Please see:

  • Posted on 25 February 2008
  • at 4:21pm
  • by Paula32

I wholeheartedly agree with this analysis of the most dreary, unwatchable tosh ever to masquerade as a "thriller". I can never quite understand the vitriol reserved for anyone who says they enjoy American TV (see earlier comment) - if The Last Enemy is the best we can offer up in this country then it's no surprise that people are flocking to American drama in droves.

  • Posted on 25 February 2008
  • at 2:57pm
  • by alxvy

I think it's great, intelligent drama. It's the unravelling of a mystery and I wouldn't be surprised if the pace quickens as it unfolds. I think it's unfair to criticise it because you don't understand it, it's supposed to keep you guessing!

  • Posted on 24 February 2008
  • at 9:26pm
  • by doctorflym

As usual Ms Graham, a badly written, one sided, obnoxious piece that tries to tell us that we'd be better of watching some American garbage than a well made British serial. I think you miss the point when you talk of series being bogged down by characterisation. British TV has always been about storytelling and creating characters, it's what we are best at. That's the way it should be as opposed to the flashy, over the top trash that America thrusts upon us every so often. I am sick of hearing about all the things that you don't care about. You epitomise the negative and shallow attitude to TV nowadays. If American TV is so much better than British, then do us all a favour and go and live over there and stop spewing out this crap week on week.

Post a comment

Do you have something to say about this post? Share your thoughts…

Post a comment

(first or nickname only)

Please do not include any personal or personally identifiable information about yourself or others (including email addresses). All information you submit about yourself or others can be viewed by others.

Thank you for your comment

Thank you for your comments. All comments will be looked at by a moderator, however, due to the numbers of comments we receive, we can't promise that all will be posted on the site.

Post another comment

More


Advertisement