Written by Joe Barton
Directed by Alex Gabassi And Lisa Gunning
Sam (to Helen): "People like you and me, darling. We don't get to ride into the sunset but we do get to see the stars go out, so that's something I guess."
Just in time for Christmas, Netflix decided to do their series version of Die Hard. Nah, not really but what we did get was this thoroughly entertaining six part spy series with three of the most talented actors in the UK at the forefront.
The death of the Chinese ambassador and his missing daughter, Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei) brought our three protagonists back into each others lives and with it, a rather complicated mess, a high body count and ever changing alliances.
The protagonists themselves. First of all, there's the enigmatic handler, Reed (Sarah Lancashire). She's not a woman to be trifled and her hold over the Black Doves meant that she had no problem pitting them against one another as well as testing their loyalty at different points during the series. Lancashire does play this type of role to cool perfection, though very little was revealed about her personal life.
Then there was Helen Webb (Keira Knightley). The Black Dove married with two kids to Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan), the Secretary of State for Defence and seemingly has the idyllic lifestyle. Helen was also having an affair with civil servant Jason Davies (Andrew Koji) while nearly getting replaced by overambitious upstart Dani (Agnes O'Casey). As a character, Helen's a great role for Knightley and she got plenty of great moments throughout the series.
My favourite character was trigger man Sam Young (Ben Whishaw). He's dragged back into the mission, owing debts to both Reed and former boss, Lenny Lines (Kathryn Hunter) while also trying to repair his relationship with ex boyfriend Michael (Omari Douglas). Yup, writer Joe Barton strikes again with great writing for queer men and Sam's the best character of the three with Whishaw rather adept at the action scenes he's given to do.
Honestly the show does have a lot of intriguing character, including a rival triggerman named Williams (Ella Lily Hyland). She was a great foil to Sam and Helen along with the seemingly ambiguous characters like Cole Atwood (Finn Bennett) and Hector Newman (Luthor Ford). The latter in particular had a complicated relationship with Sam that I definitely wanted to see more.
The only slight disappointment might be Alex Clark (Tracy Ullman), the closest to a truly vllainous person but that was more down to her having very little screen time. On the other hand, her death will have major consequences and ones we should see play out in real time.
- The episode titles were To Love Then, A Little Black Dove, The Coming Night, Go Bang Time, The Cost Of It All and In The Bleak Midwinter.
- Netflix fortunately renewed this show for a second season a few days ago. I would've watched it even if they hadn't.
- Sam admitted while tied up that his favourite Christmas movie was The Holiday.
- There's a lot of great guest actors in the series such as Papa Essiedu, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Sam Troughton, Adeel Akhtar and Lizzie Hopley to name a few.
- Standout music: Of course it's The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale Of New York as well as Raye's version of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). The latter being the theme tune for the show.
- Chronology: Set in London during Christmas 2024 with flashbacks to 2014, 2017 and one further back into Sam's childhood with his trigger man father.
Black Doves was the perfect release for Christmas and I'm really glad that this show did well enough for Netflix to renew it for a second season. Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire are all on terrific form and the tone was judged well. It was tense where it needed to be, the humour added levity but didn't detract from the seriousness and the personal relationships were all handled well. Excellent stuff.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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