WRITERS: Jed Mercurio & Alan Whiting[SPOILERS] Last week's premiere earned itself comparisons with 24 (man-on-a-mission, Islamic terrorists, torture scenes), but this week's will definitely remind you of Prison Break. But while it took Michael Scofield months to prepare and initiate his breakout, John Porter (Richard Armitage) barely takes a day after memorizing some schematics...
DIRECTOR: Daniel Percival
GUEST CAST: David Harewood, Shaun Parkes, Jodhi May, Shelley Conn & Colin Salmon
This week, a British sniper called Philics Masuku (Shaun Parkes) assassinated African leader Robert Mugabe in Harare, Zimbabwe, only to realize the man he shot was a double. Back in London, Porter was tasked by Section 20 to travel to Africa, get himself arrested for diamond smuggling, and spring Masuku from the high-security prison he's being held at before his trial. The first hour was effectively a snappy jailbreak scenario, with Porter facing the clichéd horrors of an African penal system ("cock fights" in the yard between the inmates, organized by the warden; attempted rape of a young boy after lights-out), while helped by Section 20's Layla (Jodhi May) who is posing as his legal representative and passing him coded messages to help his escape.
The second hour became a manhunt after Porter and Masuku escaped the prison, but found themselves without a getaway vehicle and chased by Colonel Tshuma's (David Harewood) armed men. As an added complication, it was revealed that Porter has been under orders to kill Masuku (to prevent embarrassment for the British government over their citizen's crime), but came to realize that Masuku was hired by British intelligence, who now need to cut him loose following his failure. Disagreeing with the treatment of a fellow soldier just doing his job for Queen and Country, Porter formed a friendship with Masuku as they tried to make it across a rendezvous with Layla across the border, while becoming embroiled in the affairs of an orphanage under tyranny by local raiders.Exactly like last week's double-bill, these two episodes were similarly heightened realities of occasionally broad and clichéd moments, but also undeniably enjoyable and fantastically-paced. A prison escape and its ensuing manhunt is inherently compelling drama, no matter how many times you've seen it done before, and the African location shooting definitely helped give the story a sense of freshness. Strike Back's unoriginal and frayed around the edges, but it's also a comfortably engaging drama with plenty going on to keep you watching and entertained. The story was certainly better than last week's, it helped that Porter had some backup from Layla in the field, and Armitage and Parkes made for a believable duo of kindred souls. It's just a shame David Harewood was wasted as a rote villain, left to stand around looking deadly serious behind shades and a beret.
It's also fun spotting the male fantasies (and nightmares) weaved through the drama: dishy Porter's cut from James Bond-like cloth, so his "Q scene" was probably being handed a condom in an elevator; a flashback to a sex scene was bathed in ethereal light; the black prison warden couldn't resist a glance at Porter's manhood after he was stripped naked; Porter's disappointed his alias is "John Dean" and not "James Dean"; and (most contentiously) most of the African characters were villains, rapists or pederasts. I guess the only reason Masuku's black is to quell suggestion writers Jed Mercurio and Alan Whiting are racist.
Overall, Strike Back's unsubtle and sometimes of questionable taste, but it carries a sense of purposeful macho entertainment-value in spades. Armitage makes for an enjoyable if thinly-drawn hero, the storyline's links to real-world concerns give it a certain edge, there are genuinely exciting sequences every 10-minutes, and plenty to giggle at in-between (like a snake-in-a-bag door trap.) It's one of those TV shows that you either sneer at for its posturing and lazy stereotyping, or just treat with all the seriousness of a small-screen Rambo-meets-Spooks.
Asides
- Why are Sky1 showing Strike Back in weekly double-bills? There are only six episodes, so it'll be over by next week! It could easily have kept an audience for six weeks, so I'm not sure what the thinking was by the schedulers. Maybe they believed it worked better as three two-hour specials, or just wanted to dominate Wednesday evening?
- Porter's wife died from a tumour she didn't tell her husband about? I didn't quite follow the reason she'd keep that a secret from him.
- Is South Africa the British version of Vancouver now? The Prisoner remake was filmed there recently, and the upcoming BBC sci-fi series Outcasts is also based there. Expect Doctor Who and Spooks to hit the African continent soon, right?
- That mystical African bushman needs his own series, as an African cop's mute sidekick.
