CORRUPTED NETWORKS (COBRA, SERIES TWO: CYBERWAR)

 

Well, let's start with the good news.

Series two of Sky Max's 'Cobra' is an improvement on the first.

That's not saying much, I know.

But it's an honest take on Ben Richards' 'Cobra: Cyberwar' which remains a leaden footed political thriller that really ought to be much better than it actually is.

Robert Carlyle returns as the unluckiest fictional British Prime Minister of all time, Robert Sutherland.

His Conservative Government's majority in the House of Commons is whittling away in the face of a credible Opposition led by Andrew Buchan's Labour leader Chris Edwards.

He is anxiously awaiting the report of an inquiry into the shooting of civilians in Northumberland during the solar flare panic in series one.

David Haig's scheming former Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan is still hanging around like a bad smell near the Tory backbenches and dangles the prospect of bringing his small band of MPs back into the fold to prop up the Sutherland administration in return for the Conservative whip and a plum role in government.

He is duly rewarded with the post of Foreign Secretary in a reshuffle.

And then, Sutherland's luck gets even worse.

In Twickenham, a helicopter carrying a Ukrainian oligarch is shot down using a drone, also killing a schools rugby coach.

The Russians are suspected.

Richard Dormer's Civil Contingencies Secretariat director Fraser Walker and his trusty sidekick, Alexa Davies' Audrey Hemmings are also in Kent, frantically evacuating a seaside town where a World War II sea wreck has been discovered with potentially explosive cargo.

The new Home Secretary, Richard Pepple's Joseph Obasi is informed that there is a potential for a huge explosion if there are any tremors on the sea bed.

Lo and behold, it detonates as Audrey is out at sea, knocking her into the water while a tsunami engulfs the town which happens to be in a constituency where there is a crucial by-election.

The remarkably resilient Fraser survives flood waters in an underpass, as it becomes clear the UK's communications network has been hit by malware bearing the message 'Ruin Britannia'.

Karan Gill's investigative reporter and podcaster Hari Misra is also being leaked sensitive intelligence about who may be responsible for the Kent explosion, putting Lisa Palfrey's Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee Eleanor James under pressure from an increasingly tetchy Prime Minister.

With Sutherland bringing Archie back onboard and backing the selection of Neil Stuke's right wing blowhard Rodger Hawkins as the Tories' by-election candidate, Victoria Hamilton's advisor Anna Marshall is getting increasingly disillusioned.

Former Sutherland aide, Marsha Thomason's Francine Bridge is also flying the red flag as a centrist Labour candidate in the by-election, with Marshall contemplating jumping ship.

To make matters worse, the Prime Minister's wife Lucy Cohu's lawyer Rachel Sutherland also finds herself caught in the eye of a media storm.

Is a foreign power creating chaos in the UK? Which antagonistic superpower is it?

When 'Cobra' aired on what was Sky One last year, the series preceded by a matter of weeks a major public health emergency in the form of the Coronavirus.

But instead of feeling oddly prescient, it squandered an opportunity to provide an insightful look at how the machinery of Government functions at a time of crisis, as the show fell prey to incredulous plotlines and naff histrionics.

What made it all the more egregious was the calibre of the cast - Carlyle, Hamilton, Dormer, Haig, Cohu, Thomason and Con O'Neill who played a trade unionist - and the way those talents were repeatedly wasted.

Unfortunately many of the flaws in Series One are still there in Series 2.

The acting can be quite hammy at times, with most of the cast in "acting in a political thriller" mode - imparting every line as if it is a state secret even when it isn't a state secret.

Some of the mainstays really struggled in Series One with unconvincing plotlines - who could forget Anna Maxwell's ridiculous tryst with Alexandre Willaume's Bosnian War survivor in a blazing hotel?

Or worse still, in the case of Haig, his character was so lazily sketched he may as well have wandered around the screen with a big black hat emblazoned with the word "villain".

'Cobra: Cyberwar' continues to reach for big dramatic moments like its predecessor that stretch credulity - Sutherland losing the plot at a press conference with a glass of water, anyone?

Some characters are feebly drawn and incredibly one dimensional and its tendency to resort to storylines about plucky ordinary people can come across as grating and terribly condescending.

Palfrey's Joint Intelligence Committee chair Eleanor James remains poorly written, while Alexa Davies' Audrey Hemmings unconvincingly gets to spout toe curling drivel about going with her dad to watch Millwall play football to Tony Way's injured marine turbine worker Stewart.

And yet... 'Cobra: Cyberwar' shows some signs in its final two episodes that with a bit more discipline and focus it might eventually hit its stride.

Haig's character reveals a bit more breadth and depth than audiences will expect - although his tendency to play Archie as Nigel Farage meets Norman Tebbit is off-putting for much of the run.

The introduction of Buchan's Chris Edwards is certainly a welcome addition and he gels very well with Thomason's Francine Bridge.

Even Carlyle seems to be a bit more engaged as the tension mounts in the final episodes.

The undoubted talent of Dormer, however, is disappointingly wasted with Fraser reduced to feeling a bit like one of those air traffic controllers popped up in Hollywood airplane disaster movies - always in the thick of trouble and rarely good news 

The same could be said for Hamilton, Cohu, Pepple, Dipo Ola as a naval officer and Karan Gill who shows some promise as Hari Misra and then gets frittered away.

With a more modest budget than most US shows, sometimes it shows as Richards' ambition for 'Cobra: Cyberwar' gets the better of it.

Thanks to HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+ and Apple+, we are used to big budget effects on our small screen.

So like 'Dr Who,' when 'Cobra: Cybercrime' goes for big effects, its lack of resources simply shows.

There's some stiff direction too from Al Mackay and Mo Ali in the episodes that they helm, although Sallie Aprahamian makes a pretty good fist of the episodes she is tasked with directing in the home stretch.

As hard as Richards and his fellow screenwriter Toby Finlay try, 'Cobra: Cybercrime' just can't convince us it is 'State of Play' or 'Edge of Darkness'.

As series one's civil emergency preceded real life lockdown, series two has also been overtaken by real events during this run.

A murder in this series chillingly mirrors the tragic, real life stabbing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess - resulting in episodes being temporarily pulled from Sky+ and Now TV's streaming services around the time of the murder.

However as uncanny as this coincidence is, Richards and Finlay's handle on current events and the dynamics of Westminster doesn't convince.

Nevertheless the writers may have stumbled on a route map in this series to improve 'Cobra' and give it a shot at longevity.

The introduction of an Opposition may enable Richards to do what 'The West Wing' balked at, depicting the trials and tribulations of a government of a rather different political complexion.

That would be brave and it would also be fascinating.

However it would require a fresh team of writers with a fresh pair of eyes, willing to take risks and let go of old stereotypes and easy narrative tropes.

It would require imaginative directors who can overcome a limited budget and squeeze more from an accomplished cast.

Maybe the thought that 'Cobra' might turn in a different political direction - not in series three but in a fourth - is a bit of a pipe dream.

Richards, his producers and directors have not shown much bravery before.

Maybe they lack the ambition and the vision to do it.

However after quite a few moments that might have killed off other, better series, their show's still breathing.

Somehow there's life in the dog just yet.

('Cobra: Cyberwar' was broadcast on Sky Max from October 15, 2021-November 19, 2021)

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