Autumn 2012: What I'll Be Watching

It's that time of year again; the tantalising brink of the autumn/fall season, where the TV networks premiere their brand new shows, together with returning favourites. As always, it promises to be a very busy time of year, and I probably won't be covering as much as usual. Instead, I'll sample the majority of pilots, write about the ones I have a strong reaction to, and then watch a few more episodes to determine if they're worth persevering with. Only the most interesting shows will become regularly reviewed here, as I just don't have the time to plough through everything.

STRIKE BACK renewed for third series

The Sky/Cinemax action-drama Strike Back has been renewed for a third series, to air in the second-half of 2012. The hit show (which originated in the UK as a six-part series in 2010, based on the novel by ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan), has been attracting around a million viewers on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps unexpectedly, it's also received its fair share of critical praise for the quality of its production and sheer entertainment-value.

Series 3 will again be comprised of 10 episodes, filmed in South Africa and produced by Left Bank Pictures. It's also been confirmed that directors Bill Eagles and Paul Wilmhurst, together with writer Tony Saint, will be returning.

Anne Mensah, Sky's Head of Drama:

"Strike Back has proved to be an incredibly successful brand for Sky1 HD, and our collaboration with HBO/Cinemax made the scale and ambition of the second season even more exciting. The third season is shaping up to be even stronger. We want it to be the most high-octane, action packed drama on British Television."

Andy Harries, executive producer, Left Bank Pictures:

"We couldn’t be more excited to be sending our Strike Back operatives back out into the field for round three. The co-production with Sky and HBO/Cinemax has brought an outstanding scale to Strike Back which is rarely attempted on British television. It's an honour to be partnering with them again for the third series."

Kary Antholis, President of HBO Miniseries:

"We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Left Bank and Sky on Strike Back. It has been an enormous success for us, as Cinemax's first primetime series, it has immediately established the network as a destination for cinematic high-octane entertainment. The next season promises much more action, suspense and compelling drama."

STRIKE BACK continues Fridays on Cinemax and Sundays on Sky1.

STRIKE BACK: PROJECT DAWN, 2.2

I won't be reviewing Strike Back going forward, simply because it's obvious the show isn't worthy of much analysis. It is what it is: an entertaining, lively, exciting, silly action romp. I enjoyed the second hour as much as the diverting premiere, particularly because it's clearer Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton have genuine rapport, and the action's nicely staged.

Given my comment last week about how cleverly the show avoided the cliché of Jimi Mistry being a villain (simply because of his Indian ethnicity), it was both amusing and disappointing to see I was wholly mistaken. His character was exposed as terrorist mastermind Latif after all! Was that an intentional double-bluff by writer Frank Spotnitz, or did the director accidentally call attention to Mistry's villainous unmasking in episode 1?

I'll be watching this ten-part series every week, and might post insubstantial reviews if anything particularly clever or memorable happens, but that's as far as my commitment will go. Too many new shows will be filling the schedule by the time Strike Back's in full swing, so it's best to bail out of weekly reviews early.

What did you make of Strike Back's second episode? Last week's review stirred up positive and negative comments from readers, but do you accept the show for what it is? Is it really any worse than series 1, as some people believe? (I can't agree with that assessment.) Are you still pining for Richard Armitage, or are his replacements already far more entertaining than the stoical John Porter ever was?

STRIKE BACK continues every Sunday at 9PM on SKY1.

Review: STRIKE BACK: PROJECT DAWN, 2.1

Sky had success with their three-part action-drama Strike Back in early-2010; based on the best-selling novel by former-SAS soldier Chris Ryan and starring Richard Armitage (Spooks, Robin Hood) as British hero John Porter. The long-awaited sequel has transformed into a very different beast; both because Sky now has a co-production partner in US cable network Cinemax (a subsidiary of HBO), and the limited availability of its leading man because of his commitment to The Hobbit.

The former isn't going to worry many viewers, as Strike Back now has an improved budget, more resources, and a 10-episode order, but the latter unfortunately means Armitage's chiseled hero is killed off within 15-minutes. Knowing the popularity of Armitage and his role in making Strike Back a hit last year (by attracting a female demographic to a very macho series), it's a major change that feels akin to writing Kiefer Sutherland out of 24's second season. Oddly, it's nowhere near as shocking as that theoretical death scene, perhaps because the show's trailers had already prepared audiences for the likelihood of Porter's demise (Armitage barely featured in any promotional material).

Can Strike Back pick itself up and soldier on, making you quickly forget its original protagonist? Based on this fast-paced and entertaining premiere, I think that's very possible, perhaps even a certainty. For starters, they've replaced Armitage with two equally attractive actors: Philip Winchester (Camelot) as by-the-book Sgt Michael Stonebridge, the poster boy of fictional British intelligence agency Section 20; and Sullivan Stapleton (December Boys) as maverick former-Delta Force operative Damien Scott, a brash, continually horny American. This gives the show a hackneyed "buddy" element to play with, but it works surprisingly well. Stonebridge even finds Scott bare-knuckle fighting in Kuala Lumpur, years after his dishonourable discharge, but that's exactly the cliché you expect from a show like Strike Back. It was either that or a Buddhist temple in the Himalayas.

It may share DNA with the likes of the venerable Spooks and innovative 24, but in many ways Strike Back's heart is twinned with posturing Steven Seagal movies. The combative title's the dead giveaway. This show plays in a world where the complexities of global terrorism can be reduced to that of a Time Crisis coin-op arcade. The violent takeover of a luxury hotel, by terrorists who start ruthlessly assassinating hostages, even plays like Level 1 of a video-game. So far it makes 24 look like a John le Carré novel.

But I don't particularly care Strike Back has a reductive swagger about it. Not every action thriller needs lofty ambitions; sometimes you just want the fun of a "clean-cut British hunk" and a "tattooed American bad boy" jetting around the world trying to catch the terrorist mastermind responsible for killing their mutual friend, who's also plotting something codenamed Project Dawn. The action's tight and efficient, there's a smattering of nudity to titillate both sexes, plausible violence (loved a naked Scott's disarming of a baddie using a towel), plus some fun twists and turns—including a last-minute reveal I should have seen coming, but somehow didn't. There's intelligent playfulness to Frank Spotnitz's (The X Files) script, as well—such as the moment Jimi Mistry's character makes his entrance and the scene allows you to assume he must be the big villain, when in fact he's an ally who just happens to be of Indian ethnicity (thus making the audience complicit in racial profiling).

Overall, I'm not convinced Strike Back: Project Dawn will offer enough depth to warrant episodic reviews, but it seems likely it'll provide a few months of entertainment. There's nothing original about its style, aesthetic, premise, story or characters—but as the TV equivalent of a Friday night straight-to-video action movie rental, Strike Back's a capable and effective offering.

written by Frank Spotnitz / directed by Daniel Percival / 21 August 2011 / Sky1

Trailer: 'Strike Back: Project Dawn' (Sky1 & Cinemax)

Sky have released a trailer for the second series of their action-drama Strike Back--now referred to as Strike Back: Project Dawn, making it sound like a video-game for XBOX. Series 2 is a co-production between Sky and Cinemax/HBO and has been expanded from three 90-minute episodes to 10 regular episodes. Writers Frank Spotnitz (The X Files) and Richard Zadjlic (EastEnders) have also joined the team.

This trailer is an unwelcome surprise, actually. While it looks perfectly good visually, it suggests the show's star Richard Armitage (Spooks, Robin Hood) will have a significantly reduced role, as two new characters (played by Camelot's Philip Winchester and Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton) are introduced on a mission to find Armitage's kidnapped SAS hero John Porter.

Knowing that Armitage is currently filming The Hobbit in New Zealand, are we to assume that he'll only be appearing in a handful of these 10 episodes? Have Sky been forced to alter the show's direction, by bringing in new characters who will probably replace Armitage eventually? If so, will Strike Back survive this major change, considering it was originally sold on Armitage's appeal? I have my doubts. It's rather like trying to sell a season of 24 where Kiefer Sutherland's barely involved, isn't it?

Cinemax's superior and longer trailer is below, confirming the controversial lack of its hero from series 1:

Strike Back: Project Dawn will premiere on Cinemax this summer. Sky have not yet set a date for their broadcast.

Strike Back, again

Sky have re-commissioned Strike Back for a 10-part second series. The three-part action-drama, based on ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan's novel and starring Richard Armitage, was a big success for Sky1 a few months ago.

I'm glad it's coming back, because it proved the UK can produce a decent action show that (while guilty of becoming dumb hokum at times) had a lot of pace and excitement to it.

STRIKE BACK 1.5 & 1.6

WRITER: Robert Murphy
DIRECTOR: Edward Hall
GUEST CAST: Ewan Bremner, Toby Stephens, Alexander Siddig, Shelley Conn & Jodhi May

[SPOILERS] The two-part finale to this surprisingly enjoyable action-drama was my least favourite of the three stories, partly because it used so many elements we've seen in the previous hours (the Middle East setting, another "buddy" dynamic), although the machinations with the US government was a nice touch.

This week, Scottish computer hacker Gerald Baxter (Ewan Bremner, in full-on grinning loon mode) became a target for the British government after successful cracking the UK's weapons security and redirecting a British fighter's missile towards US troops under attack from the Taliban. John Porter (Richard Armitage) was sent into Helmand Province, Afghanistan, to extract Baxter before his technical know-how can be used to cause further, tragic incidents. While there, Porter was captured by a tribal leader called Zahir Sharq (Alexander Siddig) who's working for the Taliban, and comes to realize that Baxter's mentally-unstable and was working undercover for the CIA

Back in London, US liaison Frank Arlington (Toby Stephens) arrived to put pressure on Collinson's (Andrew Lincoln) Section 20 to hand over Baxter and Porter, so both can be killed to spare the blushes of the US government for sending a crackpot like Baxter back out into the field. The White House also want to appease Sharq because they think he'll become a key figure in the Middle East and is someone they can deal with politically in the future.

There were some good ideas in these final episodes, and it made a change to see much of the drama come from talkier moments in London between Collinson and Frank, as the Anglo-American "special relationship" was put under a terrible strain. The storyline with Porter and Baxter was less interesting, although there was entertainment value in a no-nonsense hero like Porter having to mix with loose cannon Baxter, whose loyalties (the Americans, the British, the Afghans) were incredibly slippery. And the show continued to do a very impressive job with the action sequences, particularly in the rather gruesome spurts of blood that eject from bodies and heads whenever a bullet finds its target.

The final episodes also brought the series' recurring storyline to a close, with Layla (Jodhi May) exposing how it was actually Collinson who accidentally shot his own men during the 2003 hostage-retrieval mission in Baghdad, having tested the bullet shrapnel from a comatose victim's body after he passed away. Collinson, facing a career-ending court martial over his mistake and decision to pin the blame on innocent comrade Porter, found an excuse to fly into Afghanistan with the intention of killing Porter himself. The final moments between Collinson and Porter inside a hut surrounded by Taliban, forced to put the past behind them to save their own skins, was an effective way to bring their story to an end, while also leaving the series on a cliffhanger once an injured Collinson blew himself up and Porter was seen driving off across the desert with the US military still desperate to eliminate him.

Overall, I don't have any new insight to mention about Strike Back. I'm a little worried the show has already started to repeat itself, as it will become tiresome if we just keep getting variations on the "man-on-a-mission to retrieve a hostage/prisoner/asset" from countries where the terrain matches that of South Africa where the series is filmed. I also think a lot more could have been done with the characters throughout (particularly Porter and his family), but everything was instead more focused on ensuring the action impressed. Still, it was an entertaining (if frustratingly brief) series that worked because of four things: Richard Armitage makes for a good hero, the location shooting/choreography was excellent, the action was handled well, and the ebullient plots were an engaging mix of heightened realism and manly fantasy.

19 MAY 2010: SKY1/HD, 9PM

STRIKE BACK 1.3 & 1.4

WRITERS: Jed Mercurio & Alan Whiting
DIRECTOR: Daniel Percival
GUEST CAST: David Harewood, Shaun Parkes, Jodhi May, Shelley Conn & Colin Salmon

[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...

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.

12 MAY 2010: SKY1/HD, 9PM

STRIKE BACK 1.1 & 1.2

Over at Obsessed With Film, I review the double-bill premiere of Sky1's new six-part action drama STRIKE BACK, based on the novel by ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan and starring Richard Armitage of Spooks and Robin Hood fame.

"Like the esteemed Andy McNab before him, ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan has carved a successful post-military career writing books using his experiences in the field. His fictional work has proven popular with male readers in particular, as Tom Clancy-esque pieces of macho posturing with an added twist of plausibility given their author's first-hand background." Continue reading...

Richard Armitage strikes back; Skins USA

Richard Armitage was undoubtedly one of the best things about the BBC's fun-but-flawed Robin Hood, and now the actor has agreed to star in Sky1's Strike Back, a six-part drama adapted from the novel by ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan. The series will co-star Andrew Lincoln, Jodhi May, Orla Brady, Laura Greenwood and Nicola Stephenson.

Strike Back will follow the lives of two former soldiers, Major Hugh Collinson (Lincoln) and discharged veteran John Porter (Armitage), who meet for the first time during a Middle East hostage crisis.

Elaine Pyke, Sky1's Comissioning Editor of Drama:

"As with all Sky1 dramas, not only will it feature a gifted cast with a large popular following, but working with Andy Harries and Left Bank Pictures means an already crackling script will jump out of the screen. Shot in South Africa with stunning locations and high octane HD action sequences on a grand scale, Chris Ryan's bestselling novel will be a truly uncompromising, compelling, action drama."

The series is scheduled to premiere next spring on Sky1 and Sky1 HD.

In other news, MTV are planning to create a US version of E4's award-winning teen drama Skins. The channel will apparently honour the British model of hiring tenagers to help write the scripts and cast unknowns in the lead roles. Skins creator Brian Elsey will executive-produce the US remake, which is likely to be set in Baltimore, Maryland.

Liz Gateley, executive-producer:

"Skins is one of those rare shows that cuts through to its core audience with unusually authentic stories due to the unique writing and casting process that Bryan [Esley] pioneered. Having personally pursued the UK project for almost two years, I am beyond thrilled to bring it to MTV in the US. We intend to preserve the authenticity of the British version and are excited to collaborate with the original team to develop stories that will speak to American youth."