HUNTED: Thursday 4th October, BBC ONE, 9pm
In a moodily-lit room in Amsterdam, a doctor of chemical engineering sits with his assistant discussing his flight to London for a business deal. They speak in Dutch, subtitled. In an unbroken shot, the doctor walks out the door, and is accosted by a worried-looking man who tells him thereâs been an accident. âAn accident?â? queries the Doctor, whose name by the way is Doctor Goebel, âis it my son?â? âNoâ? replies the man, Asian, and therefore an assassin, âit is you!â?
There, in a nutshell, you have Hunted, the new B.B.C. One spy drama from the X-Files and Strike Back writer Frank Spotniz. It veers wildly between wanting to challenge you and wanting to spoon feed you everything, like a frustrated Dad whoâs been told not to do the aeroplane thing but just wants his bloody toddler to eat his mush. Consequently, arty scenes like the above sit next to genuinely-hilarious lines like, âBut Iâm your best operative!â? and âWhat did you expect? Iâm a spy!â?
Even better is the sign-posting, which is close to parody. âSo you want to find out who wants to kill you, and why?â? asks spook Aidan Marsh, like a walking Cliff Notes with designer stubble. Heâs directed the question to fellow assassin and spy Sam Hunter (geddit?), who everyone had taken for dead after she was betrayed in France. In case you didnât get this, mid-recovery she steps over a paving stone with the legend ‘Morton’ on it and her foot covers the O and the N, leaving just the word mort. Thatâs means dead! In French!
Honestly, this script wouldnât recognise subtlety if it hit it round the typeface with a brick, which it wouldnât do, because itâs subtlety.
Cliché-wise this first episode has absolutely everything: the baddies wear suit jackets over turtle necks, thereâs a shady corporation called Byzantium Corp, presumably cause OmniKill Ltd. and ÃberGlobe Inc. were already taken, and just when you feel thereâs something missing, a vaguely-sinister Guy Richie Cockney in a bad suit and accent turns up and everything feels right again. And how do we know heâs the evil boss? Because he stares out the window with his back to you! How else would we know he was the evil boss?
Anyway, I will call this vaguely-sinister Guy Richie Cockney in a bad suit and accent Jack âwants to take over a Pakistani hydroelectric dam for some reasonâ Turner. Why? Well, Avi, itâs because his nameâs Jack and he wants to take over a Pakistani hydroelectric dam for some reason.
Sam Hunter, newly back on the spy team she thought sheâd retired from (âcause sheâs too old for this shit Riggs!), is out to stop him, and sheâs pissed off. In fact, sheâs so pissed off, she spends the entire second half of the episode looking like sheâs got either a lemon, a stick or both inserted in her, which in any other case would probably make her a cocktail, but in this case makes her a totally original feisty but vulnerable, sexy but deadly, super-toned super-secret agent!
Tune in if you fancy a laugh. If not, avoid.
