Sometimes PBS/Masterpiece Theater seems to “spot on” when it comes to mysteries and period dramas that one forgets that they do contemporary drama as well. Mathew Good is the new host and he is going to take you on a journey of today’s world– which is fraught with murder, conspiracies and more.
The Masterpiece Contemporary Series debuts this season with a new product of The Last Enemy, a highly relevant drama/thriller that will hit so close to home by the time the series is over that it’s stunning.
Stephen Ezard , noted mathematician, (Benedict Cumberbatch, Atonement) returns to London upon the deah of his brother, Michae. He finds his country a society now obsessed with surveillance. Seeking to make sense of Michael’s sudden death, Stephen uncovers many secrets about his brother — including that Michael had married and left behind a wife in the wake of his death.
Taking a government job– that has a 3 year fully funded fellowship as the carrot — Stephen finds that the job involves checking out a powerful new database (known as TIA) . Stephen exposes troubling revelations and soon finds himself stalked by a rogue agent (Robert Carlyle, The Full Monty).
More frightening than the rogue agent dogging him, Stephen stumbles into an international conspiracy and he realizes that the omnipresent, menacing all-seeing, all-knowing eye of the government has turned on him. Stephen must thread the needle of the refugees, the rogue agents (this is more than one), the government and the scientists who are “dropping like flies” , Stephen ends up emerging at the other end of the maze — but at what price? The screenplay by Peter Berry (Prime Suspect 6) for The Last Enemy offers a frenetic ride through the paranoia and politics of a futuristic surveillance society.
This series starts slow– but please give it time. The first 30 minutes drags but the last starts to really wind up the story. Each of the episodes becomes more tense, taut with fear, frustration and terror.
Stevie Wilson
Subscribe to RSS headline updates
Powered by FeedBurner
