Jeff Daniels in Hulu (US)'s The Looming Tower
US TV

Third-episode verdict: The Looming Tower (US: Hulu; UK: Amazon)

In the US: Wednesdays, Hulu
In the UK: Thursdays, Amazon

How soon is too soon? 9/11 was a staggering 17 years ago, more or less, yet it still looms over daily politics. So is it too soon for the events leading up to it – and its fallout – to be dramatised on TV, even by documentary makers working from a book by a Pulitzer Prize-winner?

Possibly. To be honest, The Looming Tower feels a little brave just for trying to do what it’s doing – namely to point fingers at real people and organisations to suggest what went wrong with the US’s intelligence apparatus that allowed Osama bin Laden to fatally attack New York and Washington DC in 2001. But it does it so well and intelligently that you feel it’s earned the right.

Looming tower

It starts its narrative in 1998, introducing us to the two real adversaries of the piece: Jeff Daniels, the head of the FBI’s I-49 Squad counter-terrorism unit, and Peter Sarsgaard, the CIA’s corresponding head of ‘Alec Station’. Both want to catch Osama bin Laden, but disagree on methods. Daniels wants to approach it as a criminal matter, building a case against him so he can be arrested and tried in court, working his way up through the minor levels of al Qaeda until he gets to the boss. Sarsgaard on the other hand doesn’t care about the little people and is worried that using intel to catch them will let the big guy get away. He’d rather rendition, waterboard, bribe and carpet bomb his way around the Middle East until he can cut the head off the snake, even if it means thousands of civilians will be killed in the process – at least they won’t be American civilians.

Sarsgaard’s approach means that he’s not going to give Daniels any of the intel he receives, as Daniels will only end doing something stupid like using it to arrest people. What could go wrong? The Looming Tower shows us exactly what.

In most fictional shows, Sarsgaard would be the daring goodie, Daniels the by-the-book dullard who’s missing the bigger picture and needs to be sidetracked. But although it’s ultimately the CIA that gets its way, defining US tactics for years post 9-11 before it switches to Daniels’ approach, The Looking Tower instead sides with Daniels.

Saarsgaard is a brittle theoretician with zero people skills and just as little field experience. Nevertheless, he believes he’s the smartest man in the room – everyone calls him ‘the professor’ – and can’t see any flaws in his ‘perfect’ (aka insane) plans, other than the stupidity of other people.

Meanwhile, Daniels is all about feet on the ground and getting to know the enemy, using the normal skills of law enforcement. His methodical use of human intelligence is going to work best in the long-term and avoid potentially bolstering al-Qaeda’s recruitment campaigns; it’s also going to stop atrocities from happening in the short-term.

Central to this is Tahar Rahim (A Prophet, The Last Panthers), one of the FBI’s eight (read them and weep) Arabic speakers and a lapsed Lebanese-American Muslim who joined the FBI for a bet. But Bill Camp, an ageing former soldier trained in counter-intelligence techniques, also proves to be important as he uses his training to extract information peacefully from those who have been arrested.

Tahar Rahim in The Looming Tower
Tahar Rahim in The Looming Tower

Nairobi

Although the action sometimes shifts to the 2004 congressional 9/11 enquiry, the first three episodes are still largely set three years before 2001, when bin Laden’s plans for the US are still nascent. The story therefore focuses on his warning to the world in his interview with ABC on US TV, followed by his assaults in Africa, including the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the subsequent FBI investigation.

Here, the show takes a leaf from Narcos‘ book by interspersing the show’s impressive recreation of events with TV footage of the time, making everything far more real than it would otherwise have been. It also does everything intelligently and no one is stupid – arrogant, maybe, but not stupid. The FBI, the Kenyan police and al Qaeda are all respectful professionals, as well as fully rounded human beings.

There’s a real air of verisimilitude to proceedings, in terms of both the FBI’s work as well as al Qaeda’s planning. If a trite cliché of the spy or police procedural genre comes anywhere near the plot, it quickly gets chewed up and spat out. There’s also some great dialogue and even moments of comedy, mainly involving national intelligence co-ordinator Michael Stuhlbarg’s rebuffs to Saarsgaard (“I know you think there’s a button under my desk that can authorise bombings at your word, but I have to tell you, no such button has been supplied to me”).

Okay, that’s not 100% true of the activities in England, with South Africa not wholly convincing as a double for both London and Manchester. But I’ve seen worse and Tony Curran’s Special Branch officer clearly comes from Northern Ireland not the Republic – the show doesn’t overlook the IRA’s activities in previous decades, either.

Peter Sarsgaard in The Looming Tower
Peter Sarsgaard in The Looming Tower

Conclusion

There is perhaps a little too much focus on Daniels’ bigamist (or should that be trigamist) private life, as well as Rahim’s dating activities. Alec Baldwin has yet to convince as CIA director George Tenet and the story’s thrust is perhaps a little too one-sided, with the CIA clearly identified by the show as the problem, with little contrasting evidence from the agency’s point of view. And while The Looming Tower is better paced and better written than its ultimate epilogue Zero Dark Thirty, it’s obviously nowhere near as well directed, even if its paced documentary style serves the narrative.

But if you like your Homeland-style spy thrillers with real-world authenticity, great acting from Sarsgaard and Rahim, and genuine stakes, The Looming Tower will be a great addition to your viewing queue.

Barrometer Rating: 1

The Barrometer for the Looming Tower

Good Girls
US TV

Review: Good Girls 1×1 (US: NBC)

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, NBC

Every so often, NBC tries to do working class. Like a trust-funder volunteering in a soup kitchen, it’s never very comfortable doing it, but it holds its nose and tries its best all the same.

Kudos to the network for at least trying to go blue collar with the likes of Superstore, but it’s going to be a while before NBC is ready to take off its latex gloves and hang out with the customers if Good Girls is anything to go by. It sees Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) and Mae Whitman (Parenthood) playing working class, Detroit sisters, Retta their equally working class Detroit friend.

All are down on their luck. Hendricks is married to car dealer Matthew Lillard (Homeland) and discovers not only is Lillard having an affair, he’s made some bad deals and bankrupted the family. Retta’s married to a security guard but their kid is sick and needs some very expensive medical treatments. Whitman is a single mother who works at a grocery store and whose ex- is now rich and looking to get custody of their son with his new wife.

Naturally, Whitman has the brainwave of robbing her workplace to solve all their problems. However, rather than simply mulling it over as a fun but crazy idea, they actually go ahead and do it. Even more surprisingly, the store’s safe turns out to have half a million dollars in it, making them rich over night.

Why does it have so much money in it? Well, that’s a slightly less fun story…

Desperate housewives

Good Girls has a confused ‘vaccinated time travel‘ feel. It’s happy venturing into the realm of soccer mums and checkout girls for all of about 10 minutes, during which it tries to show the misery of poverty with no way out. Retta’s visits to her doctor should be compulsory viewing for anyone who thinks the NHS can’t get any worse, while Whitman’s sexually harassed, abused worker is never going to benefit from a #MeToo hashtag. Hendricks isn’t exactly starting from zero, but the fear is she’s going to end up on less than zero before too long.

Guided tour through poverty over, soon it’s off to the land of Porsches, iPhones and doctors who give you refreshing flavoured waters – all accompanied by an almost audible sigh of relief as it musters up the courage to try again next week.

Yet Good Girls also feels there’s a certain nobility in being penniless, with Whitman’s son more comfortable with her when she has no money than when she does. The show quickly punishes its heroines for wanting to have more than they’ve got, even if it is because they’ve committed a crime. Spoiler alert: (spoiler alert) Whitman’s boss works out it was her and tries to blackmail her for sexual favours; Retta’s husband succeeds in getting into police academy, putting them both in a difficult position; and all three women are soon at the mercy of the (naturally dangerous because they’re ‘ethnic’) gang who were storing the money in the safe. Women: know your place.

That confused feeling extends to its indecision over whether it’s a comedy or a drama. One moment Retta’s being ignored by a hurried doctor and told she needs to find $10,000 a month to have a chance of keeping her kid alive, the next Hendricks is having an embarrassing comedic waxing. The hold-up is all for laughs, as the ‘good girls’ get to pretend at being bad-asses, but by the end of the episode (spoiler alert) there’s a near-rape and a brutal murder.

It’s Desperate Housewives meets Sons of Anarchy meets Desperate Housewives again. Except not very good.

Whitman unsurprisingly does well, given she gets the bulk of the meaty lines and drama. Retta is mainly there for the comedy and pathos, but doesn’t have the material to work with. Hendricks is largely off in her own revenge comedy with Lillard that feels oddly disconnected from the others’ more visceral plights.

Average girls

Good Girls is neither awful nor great. It’s a show that wants to take a walk on the wild side but gets a bit frightened when it does and quickly decides everyone should stay in their place. Whether it’ll allow all three women to ultimately Break Bad or not, I can’t say, but I don’t think I’ll hang around to find out.

Mary Poppins Returns
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Jessica Alba joins the Bad Boys; Mary Poppins Returns trailer; Martin Freeman – Breeder; + more

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  • Teaser trailer for the final season of Netflix’s House of Cards
  • Priah Ferguson to recur on, Maya Thurman-Hawke joins Netflix’s Stranger Things

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Date My Dad
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including SMILF, The Resident, Coppers, Gidseltagningen and Date My Dad

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

The only new acquisitions this week also have premiere dates. So let’s get straight to it:

Premiere dates

Coppers

Coppers (Rough Justice) (Belgium: VTM; UK: More4)
Premiere date: Friday, March 9, 9pm

Haven’t seen this so let’s see what Google Translate makes of the spiel:

In an ideal world, justice and justice are synonyms. A criminal commits a crime against a victim and the justice system ensures that the scales are rebalanced. The criminal gets his deserved punishment and the victim is compensated as far as possible for the suffering suffered. Often the reality is different. Lady Justice is not wearing a blindfold for centuries. Large fraudsters are released while small shrimps are being dealt with. Perpetrators are released by procedural errors while victims remain in the cold. Sometimes the law can be very unjust.

‘Coppers’, the new crime series by VTM and the production house Menuet, in which Hilde De Baerdemaeker, in the role of Commissioner Liese Meerhout of the federal judicial police, is looking for justice. In thirteen stand-alone episodes, the audience is introduced to Liese Meerhout, a warm, driven flick, with a quirky side.

The television series is a combination of free adaptations of the crime novels by Toni Coppers and new stories in line with the work of the author.

Gidseltagningen (Below The Surface)
Gidseltagningen (Below The Surface)

Gidseltagningen (Below The Surface) (Denmark: Kanal 5; UK: BBC Four)
Premiere date: Saturday, March 10, 9pm

Written and directed by Kasper Barfoed, Below The Surface focuses on an act of terrorism committed on the Copenhagen Metro, where fifteen people are taken hostage. Former soldier Philip Nørgaard (Johannes Lassen), who is head of the PET Terror Task Force, tries to save the hostages with help from members of his elite team.

SMILF
Frankie Shaw in SMILF

SMILF (US: Showtime; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Premiere date: Wednesday, March 14, 10pm

Frankie Shaw (Mr Robot) writes and stars in this series based on a semi-autobiographical short film she directed a few years ago. Obviously, it all feels accurate and the fact Showtime has it paired with Shameless should tell you something about how it feels tonally. However, it’s a lot less funnier than Shameless, and is mostly a sad tale about someone losing out on life’s events. An interesting perspective, perhaps even important, but not really a journey I want to go on, I’m afraid.

Episode reviews: 1

The Resident
The Resident: L-R: Manish Dayal, Emily VanCamp, Matt Czuchry and Bruce Greenwood ©2017 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Guy D’Alema/FOX

The Resident (US: Fox; UK: Universal Channel)
Premiere date: Tuesday, April 10, 9pm

A medical procedural that gets better but duller over time as we learn the difference between medicine in theory and medicine in practice. The show starts off a “Battle of the Dicks”, with new arrival Manish Dayal learning that his teaching resident (Matt Czuchry) is a dick, but one who knows more than he does; meanwhile, Czuchry has to deal with fatally incompetent head of surgery Bruce Greenwood, who in turn knows more than he does and is willing to use it blackmail everyone into keeping quiet about his shaky hands.

Later episodes then downgrade the dickishness of the characters so that the show becomes more of a consideration of the financial and political issues involved in treating patients. It’s a more interesting, if more predictable show, but still not worth sticking around for.

Episode reviews: 1, 2, 3

Date My Dad

Date My Dad (US: UP TV; UK: Movies 24)
Premiere date: Sunday, April 29, 5pm

Former professional baseball player, Ricky Cooper had the perfect life until his world comes crashing down when his wife passes away, leaving him to raise his three daughters with the help of his live-in mother-in-law Rosa.

Sounds grim, but it’s supposed to be a comedy and it sees Raquel Welch playing Rosa. Huh.

Carrie Anne Moss in Wisting
News

Discworld TV series; Carrie-Anne Moss goes to Norway; Bebe Neuwirth’s Good Fight; + more

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International TV

  • Sarah Wayne Callies, Michael Shanks, Shawn Doyle et al join SundanceTV (US)/CBC (Canada)’s Unspeakable
  • Paramount TV developing: Moscow-set thriller, and adaptations of Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram and Diksha Basu’s The Windfall

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  • Clip from Freeform’s Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger
  • Trailer for Starz’s Sweetbitter

New US TV show casting