There are moments in the life of a television critic where a series to which they are affected inspire them to write text trains, sometimes because the said series is good, sometimes because it is bad. Then there is what I like to call Critic Purgatory, when the series does not inspire anything. Neither impressive nor terrible, the series is drifting in the slump of art. If they had EMMYS for dull television, then I am sure “hostage”, a limited British series now broadcast on Netflix, would make a clean scan.
Bromodic details: British Prime Minister Abigail Dalton (Suranne Jones) faces the Critique Critique of National Health Service cancer when she learns her husband doctor, Alex Anderson (Ashley Thomas), was removed in French Guyana while working with doctors without borders. The kidnappers issue a request: either Dalton resigns from his post or her husband and colleagues will die. By a strange coincidence, Dalton attends a summit with the French president Vivienne Toussaint (Julie Delpy) that day!
Although sympathetic in the agony of Dalton, Madam President ends the situation to her advantage, agreeing to save Anderson from the French forces in exchange for concessions for the rise in eyebrows. But just as the rescue operation should start, Toussaint is sung with an overwhelming video, and it prohibits the mission. She and Dalton must both sail in a dead end, in which they weigh the family, the country and the personal ambition against each other. There are many more things, but the embargoes prevent me from discussing it, because the details of the intrigue of a Netflix series must be protected as the details of nuclear treaties, even if it is on service when you read this review.
Actor Anna Chancellor said one day that, unlike, let’s say, Lady Judi Dench, she cannot “transform a piece of poop into a silk handbag”. This does not mean that the cast of “hostage” does not try. There is a thorny vulnerability in the otherwise confident behavior of Delpy which could have flourished in something more interesting, and I also tries to balance Dalton’s despair with an exterior of steel. It just doesn’t work because the characters have no time or space to develop. Lucian Msamati (who gave everything as Cardinal Adeyemi in “Conclave”) tries to animate the procedure as Kofi Adomako, Dalton chief advisor, with a certain slippery quality to his body language which could imply betrayal or loyalty. I know that Ashley Thomas is more capable (he had a great time playing a Steampunk lawyer in “big expectations”), but all he did here is rage and cry.
Visually, “hostage” is exactly like a “bodyguard” or “the diplomat”, the other series of Netflix involving powerful women and complex choices. (Sometimes these similarities bordered the literal, because Jones and the “bodyguard”, Keeley Hawes, could pass for twins.) Cinematography even lacks the biggest index of flair or style; Dialogue, management and publishing are also ordinary. The creator Matt Charman, who wrote the five episodes, is a screenwriter nominated from the Oscars (“Bridge of Spies”), but whatever the talent he does not have here. One wonders why political dramas are afraid of taking formal risks.
It is not a complete wash, however. The only member of the crew who tried to have fun is the costume designer Annie Hardinge. It immediately differentiates Toussaint and Dalton, by dressing the first of daring colors and long, adorned earrings, while the second is dressed in impressions and conservative silhouettes and door of small circular earrings. Qualified directors and writers could use these touches to further strengthen writing, especially when a show like “hostage” needs so much help to hide its coherent faults. In the end, it is a bland series which, to borrow a sentence from “The Simpsons”, has tried nothing and which is short of ideas.
Three out of five episodes were examined for examination. Now on Netflix.
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