Article first published as THE GAME Review on Seat42F.
BBC
America begins airing the six-part period spy drama THE GAME this week.
Set in 1970s Cold War Britain, it features a cat-and-mouse game of
espionage between the KGB and MI5, racing against time to stop deep
conspiracies full of hidden cells and double-agents. It is created and
written by Toby Whitehouse of Being Human fame.
I
used a number of tired clichés in that first paragraph, but there’s
really no other way to describe this program. This genre has become
quite crowded with copycats, and while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and
others might be excellent period pieces with beautiful sets and costumes
and intelligent, twisty writing, the seventh time you see something in
that vein, it loses its magic.
There
is nothing wrong with THE GAME itself. It’s a well-made, stylistically
terrific, smart drama. The characters are interesting, the pacing is
slow, as it often is in these British-made programs, but moves along
with enough surprises to stay interesting. The acting is wonderful and
the writing is fine. The settings make it visually engaging, and the
color palette sets an appropriate tone for the story being told. I’m
really not finding any specific aspect to complain about.
Except,
the entire time I was watching the first part, I kept feeling like I’d
already seen this before. The names and faces blur together enough that I
don’t know exactly what will come next, but I do know the general
direction things are going in and that some characters will shift
allegiances or be exposed as villains or die. Like a dozen other series
and miniseries that have aired in the past few years, and even before
that, THE GAME follows an extremely familiar pattern and cadence that
lacks originality and freshness. Because of this, it’s more boring than
it should be.
I feel like British spy
dramas have become that country’s version of the American crime
procedural (or the British crime procedural, for that matter). Every
“new” version is just a slight variation on a relatively strict formula.
It’s a formula that works extremely well or the producers wouldn’t keep
making it, but those that produce this sort of thing do not do nearly
enough to set their piece apart from any other. THE GAME is as guilty of
this as any other recent example that springs to mind. That’s why I’m
going to skip watching this one and stick to something more serial, like
FX’s The Americans, and unless you haven’t seen one of these in awhile,
I recommend you do the same.
For
those interested, THE GAME stars Tom Hughes (Page Eight) as Joe Lambe, a
young malcontent who may or may not have a soul left. Joe’s plot makes
up the framework story, as viewers see glimpses of him accompanied by an
attractive woman meeting with KGB agents on the coast. Obviously, this
meeting goes awry. The audience won’t know where Joe’s true loyalties
lie any time soon. Is he trying to defect to the Soviets? Is he tricking
them for Queen and country? Does he return to his home to serve as a
double agent or to stop a nefarious scheme? It’s impossible to tell yet.
Joe’s
boss is Daddy (Brian Cox, Braveheart). Well respected in the
department, savvy and paranoid, Daddy is the type of leader you’d expect
to see in a secret group within MI5, played by an actor with the
gravitas to handle the role, a definite plus for THE GAME, if not an
unusual one. Will Daddy’s skills be sharp enough to figure out the
secrets behind Operation Glass, or has he aged out of his usefulness?
Will his pride or his suspicion be his undoing?
THE GAME airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on BBC America.
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