Black Ops review: BBC high-stakes police comedy keeps you on your toes
When two inexperienced PCSOs join an undercover drugs operation, all hell breaks loose.
Only 2 episodes were made available for review.
If you think you're having a bad week, wait until you meet Dom (Gbemisola Ikumelo) and Kay (Hammed Animashaun). BBC comedy-thriller Black Ops follows the pair of police community support officers (PCSOs) as they're unexpectedly drafted into an undercover operation.
Under the instruction of their handler Clinton (His Dark Materials' Ariyon Bakare), their leafletting days are swapped for selling heroin on an East London estate, which piques the interest of a prolific local drug gang. Clinton has been monitoring the group for some time but as of yet, he's been unable to topple them.
With Dom and Kay now on the inside, however, he finally has the crucial in he's been looking for.
Black Ops is as concerned with being a thriller as it is with making viewers smile – even when navigating subject matter that is anything but funny, such as police incompetence, which is a testament to the writing. It's consistently amusing, with plenty of laugh out loud moments peppered throughout and yet, the stakes remain sky high for our lead duo, with danger lurking around every corner. The writing, which was a team effort between Ikumelo, Akemnji Ndifornyen (who plays gang member Tevin), Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf successfully straddles both elements, giving the audience the best of both worlds.
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It's an inherently comedic premise that captures both the comedic nature of what it is to be a fish out of water and just how terrifying it is to navigate unknown territory, particularly when prison or death are very real possibilities.
The focal point is Dom and Kay's dynamic. The former is jaded after several career knock-backs and has all but given up, doing the bare minimum with no real sense of direction. Kay is a practising Christian who maintains a glass-half-full mentality, but is also deeply naive at times and favours the easy road more often than he should. At first glance, they are a complete mismatch but in true buddy cop style, they learn from one another along the way, with both of them bringing out valuable qualities in the other that have long remained dormant – and watching their respective evolutions makes for a satisfying viewing experience.
And there's more than initially meets the eye to several of the other characters we meet. Leather jacket-clad drug dealer Tevin has a life outside the constraints of his day job, which has the potential to raise interesting questions about what motivates a person to enter a life of crime.
Felicity Montagu (Alan Partridge, Beyond Paradise) plays a senior member of the MET whose behaviour will raise eyebrows.
The rest of the cast is rounded out by a wealth of talent, including Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It, After Love), Robbie Gee (Desmond's, Motherland), Jo Martin (Holby City, Doctor Who), Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street, Innocent) and Zoë Wanamaker (My Family, Shadow and Bone) – all of whom are clearly enjoying themselves, which is infectious.
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The first two episodes, which were the only ones made available for review, do a solid job of drawing you in as Dom and Kay's predicament lurches from one extreme to another. If you're able to suspend your disbelief and lean into the chaos, Black Ops does more than enough to keep you entertained.
Black Ops premieres on Friday 5th May at 9:30pm on BBC One. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight.
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