In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm ET/PT, Audience
In the UK: Not yet acquired
The 70s was a great era for conspiracy thrillers. Fresh from the Watergate scandal, the second half in particular was littered with paranoid stories about corrupt governments and organisations: The Parallax View, The Conversation, All the President’s Men, Capricorn One, Brass Target, The China Syndrome, Futureworld, Marathon Man – the list goes on. Indeed, the genre didn’t really end until halfway through Reagan’s first term with the likes of Blue Thunder and Blow Out.
However, because there are some true classics in that list, the not-quite-so-greats of the genre also tend to get elevated to higher status as a result. Three Days of the Condor is not really a classic. Not really.
Based on James Grady’s Six Days of the Condor, it sees Robert Redford playing a somewhat nerdy CIA analyst who analyses the plots of novels for a living. Then one day when he’s supposed to be at work, armed men break in and kill everyone in the office, leaving just Redford alive. Redford goes on the run, but then has to work out whom he can trust and who’s out to get him.
I’ve watched it twice and I’ve still yet to really get why people like it, other than because of Sydney Pollack’s taut direction, a reasonable air of mimesis, Robert Redford’s acting and the genre itself. Because it’s all right, sure. But Redford doesn’t really have much by way of tradecraft, beyond an ability to hack the old analogue phone system, and he doesn’t exactly treat women well. Not a lot happens, either.
Nevertheless, it’s still regarded as a classic and its influence continues to this very day. Indeed, in many ways, the dearly departed Rubicon owes a very obvious debt to Three Days of the Condor.
Birdie
Now we have Audience’s Condor, which presumably is so-named either to keep the show open-ended or because it’s following a strict arithmetic progression from the original novel. A new adaptation of both the original book and the movie, it marries Three Days of the Condor, Rubicon and 24 into something that if not a classic, is at least a whole lot more exciting than its film source. Which is surprising, given it’s by the people responsible for NBC cluster-f*cks Kidnapped, Bionic Woman, and My Own Worst Enemy.
It sees Max “son of Jeremy” Irons in the Redford role. Now a coder working on data analysis in a similar sort of set-up to Redford, he’s disillusioned with spying and on the point of giving up. It’s been six years since his previous relationship and every time he goes on a date with the likes of Katherine Cunningham, either work gets in the way or he’s unable to open up. He grouses about it to fellow CIA buddy Kristoffer Polaha (Valentine, Ringer, Life Unexpected, Miss Guided) and Polaha’s wife Kristen Hager (Being Human (US)) and decides to hand in his notice in.
Then he’s hauled off in the middle of the night by Polaha to meet some CIA big bods including his uncle (William Hurt) and the deputy director Bob Balaban. An old program of his designed to pick up potential terrorists has identified – with only a 12% chance of accuracy – just such a person… and he’s in the US, heading to a packed stadium with a package from a PO box. What should they do?
Irons waxes eloquent about civil liberties and presumably bored and insulted they send him packing to the dirty without him.
Before you know it, thousands of people have been saved and Hurt is tasking Irons and the rest of his Rubicon-esque co-workers with the job of finding the people who organised the attempted incident. Except within a day, everyone’s been shot at work and Irons is on the run.
What’s going on, who’s responsible, why are they targeting Irons, where can he run to, when will he be safe and how can he know who to trust?
Presumably we won’t find out in three days any more.
In Australia: Sundays, 8.30pm, ABC
In the UK: Saturdays, 9pm, BBC Four. Starts September 22
As a rule, most Australian cinema passes the UK by. Occasionally we get a breakout hit, such as Mad Max, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert or Strictly Ballroom, but largely, we miss out on the industry’s richness. A slight exception to the rule is horror and thrillers, usually ones set in the Outback, with the likes of Wolf Creek often doing better than you might expect, which is perhaps why the Australian TV industry is waking up to their possibilities for adaptation as series.
Mystery Road is a sequel to not just one but two movies that might have largely passed the UK public by, were it not for the likes of Amazon: the original Mystery Road and its sequel Goldstone, both of which starred Aaron Pedersen (Wildside, Water Rats, The Circuit, City Homicide, Jack Irish, A Place to Call Home) as an impressively craggy, lone detective, working in Western Australia near Perth. Essentially, a Wild West sheriff, it’s up to him to stand up for truth, justice and the Australian way when no one else will – usually because there is no one else.
Mystery Road: the series
ABC’s new six-part Sunday night thriller Mystery Road is more or less a direct continuation of those films that expands them out, even if Pederson is virtually the only actor to make it over from the original movies as the action has moved onto another location. It sees the rather highly nominated Judy Davis playing a small town police officer who calls in Pederson to help her when a local boy goes missing. However, it’s not long before they discover another boy is missing and that it might all tie into an old crime involving the boy’s uncle, who’s just getting released from prison – which is something no one wants.
Every so often, TMINE flags up what new TV events BAFTA is holding around the UK
It’s been barely seconds since the previous BAFTA post on TMINE, but here comes another one, since BAFTA just revealed two more events, this time in July. If Hang Ups sounds familiar, BTW, that’s because it’s a remake of Showtime (US)’s Web Therapy.
TV Preview: Hang Ups
Thursday, 5 July 2018 – 6:45pm
Princess Anne Theatre, 195 Piccadilly, London
A preview of the new Channel 4 comedy followed by a Q+A with co-writer and lead actor Stephen Mangan
Written by Robert Delamere and Stephen Mangan, Hang Ups is an unconventional comedy about an unconventional therapist trying to keep his unconventional life, and patients, from falling apart.
Mangan stars as Dr. Richard Pitt, a therapist who finds himself at a crossroads in life. After the collapse of his previous group therapy practice, Richard develops a new form of therapy – weekly quick-fire sessions with his patients through a webcam. The few patients on his list present a hilarious and outrageous catalogue of neuroses, phobias, issues, anxieties and psychopathies, but even these short sessions, where he’s confronted by everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, are not his greatest challenge… His patience and temperament are stretched to their limit by the daily interruptions of a demanding extended family, errant teenagers and his own trouble-filled past.
The all-star cast includes Richard E. Grant, Jessica Hynes, David Tennant, Arsher Ali, Charles Dance, Katherine Parkinson and Celia Imrie amongst others.
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 – 6:45pm
Princess Anne Theatre, 195 Piccadilly, London
A TV Preview of UKTV’s new comedy reality show. Followed by a Q&A with Romesh Ranganathan, Kerry Howard, Tom Davis, Dan Baldwin.
Directed by Ollie Bartlett and hosted by Romesh Ranganathan, this new reality show will offer a brutal and hilarious judgement on people’s real life domestic disputes. Each episode will see Romesh joined in court by comedians Tom Davis and Kerry Howard – together, they’ll find answers to the arguments of the everyman.
Executive produced for Hungry Bear Media by Dan Baldwin and Andy Price.
