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.
Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK
Last week, I talked about Walter (of Walter Presents)’s habit of acquiring things without telling us. Turns out he’s not alone and the BBC is getting in on the act.
For example, last week, lots of news services were reporting that BBC Two had picked up Picnic at Hanging Rock, thanks largely to the Beeb’s own press release. And it’s true that we didn’t know which channel it would air on until now. But the Beeb actually bought it back in December.
Nick Forward, Stan’s Chief Content Officer said “No Activity has made its way around the world, from Hulu in the US to the BBC in the UK. With another season of the US version to come later in the year, now feels like the right time to bring the team back to Australia for a very special production and we can’t wait to see what kind of havoc Trent, Patrick and the team wreak on Christmas 2018.”
Yep, apparently, the Beeb has bought the original Australian version of No Activity. It just hasn’t told anyone yet.
Meanwhile, it was announced today that Sky Living is going to rebrand as Sky Witness (ooh, puntastic). Tucked away in that announcement was the fact that it’s bought up not just ABC (US)’s For the People but also Epix (US)’s forthcoming ten-part, Patrick Dempsey-fronted The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair.
No word on airdates for any of those, of course, but at least we know Sky has them. In fact, we have but one new airdate to focus our attention on this week.
Premiere dates
Thanks to TV Wise for this week’s no longer closely guarded secret.
Girl with a brain disorder is able to enter the memories of newly dead people to find out why they were killed and solve the crime. Trouble is, it’s hard to deal with her newfound empathy and on top of that, it’s all part of a top secret government project run by young science nerds who may not know what the Powers That Be are really up to…
Basically, it’s Inception but “as stupid as a bag full of spanners wearing toupees”, to quote myself, so this is good scheduling by Syfy, since it’s a great summer show, breezy, silly and full of fun (each week, a fun game: guess the science-fiction TV show or movie the head nerd is quoting).
However, Freeform messed up by running the second season in the winter and nobody bothered tuning in, so it was cancelled. Equally, its summer scheduling and breeziness were a two-edged sword for me – it was fun enough to watch episodically, but I missed some episodes when I went on vacation and I didn’t care enough about it to play catch up when I came back.
Still, at least it’s better than NBC (US)’s rather similar Reverie…
Channel 4 green lights: series of Victorian Sweeney comedy Year of the Rabbit, with Matt Berry; and Syrian refugee in suburbia comedy Home, with Rufus Jones…
