Hunted: Season Finale Impressions

Hunted is a bond-esque television drama written by Frank Spotnitz for BBC One staring Melissa George as Sam Hunter, the butt-kicking espionage operative working for the private intelligence agency, Byzantium. Like a female version of Bond, Sam has the knack for getting herself into trouble, although nothing she can't fight her way out of with her to-be-expected incomparable training, but most of all the sex appeal we have come to expect from attractive and talented spy flick stars. Unfortunately, that same sex appeal is ruined by her petulant sulking and weak moments that betrays the tough character personality she is attempting to develop into.

When Sam is betrayed by members of the very intelligence agency she works for, she goes into hiding in order to recover from the attempt on her life that cost her the life of her unborn child. During her recovery she gathers together any information she can find on Byzantium, looking for clues that will lead to the identity of those who betrayed her and why they'd made an attempt on her life, which as the story progresses, is apparently tied into a project called Hourglass, and a traumatic experience she suffered as a child.

Having recovered from her injury and loss, Sam returns to Byzantium when she realises it is the only way she can find answers to the puzzle surrounding her. She is welcomed back into the team, although many surprised to see her, including her once boyfriend, and the father of her dead baby, Aiden Marsh. Knowing she is their best operative, they quickly throw her back into the action, assigning her to gain the trust of Stephen Turner. Rescuing his son from a staged kidnapping attempt, Sam is quickly brought into Stephen's home as a nanny for his son, Edward, when she takes on the persona of Alex Kent, a single woman desperately in need of a job. Sam uses the secret identity and position to get close to Stephen's father, Jack Turner, and discover the secret he is using to blackmail a large conglomerate organisation that has ties to Byzantium. The story escalates when she discovers ties between the attempt of her life, the mysterious Hourglass project, Byzantium and it's largest parent company, Polyhedrus.

I had wanted to believe in the show that so much reminded me of a UK version of Alias without the cheesy acting. It was supposed to be the show that filled the gap left by the hit show Spooks, and clearly the network had dropped a huge ton of money into it. The production quality is high, although on occasions suffers from some below-average acting and scripts. On the whole though, the show appeared to have potential, and a decent amount of action and intrigue to keep me interested. Unfortunately, ratings slipped on the show and now it looks to be on rocky ground. BBC One is choosing to drop support for the show, but Cinemax hasn't given up hope quite yet. We will see a second season, but it might go the way of Strike Back and become a hugely different show. It will still feature the sexy Melissa George, although some may consider that a negative, rather than positive, based on her acting skills. But she has a pretty face, right? That always sells.

The greatest problem I see with Hunted is the unresolved plot arcs. I believe, given the funding and support, the holes would have all been filled in time and answers given, but the show was surviving on a severely limited number of episodes for a story that easily needed double their allotment. The simple truth was, there were far too many stories going on in the show for it to possibly reach any satisfactory conclusion. The worst of this being the briefly visited, but unfulfilled relationship Sam develops with Stephen and his son. I was disappointed how easily they threw away all they'd worked towards regarding them in those last episodes, although I suppose his character was too weak to truly take her interest. On many occasions, Stephen frustrated me with his inability to stand up to his father, even after discovering all Jack's dirty, dark secrets. With the move away from BBC One, we should be worried that those questions we had by the end of the finale might very well be left unanswered. It is a shame, because the series did show a good level of untapped potential that I had hoped they would in time work their way into.

Overall, the series was intriguing, but ultimately an unsatisfying watch. I enjoyed watching it, but would have liked there to be at least a full season of episodes so they could flesh it out properly. Read More →

Arrow: Impressions after the first five episodes.

When a comic superhero is turned into a live action show, I've always approached it with a bit of apprehension. Until recently, such shows have been known for excessively cheesy lines, poor acting and ridiculous stunts that defy the laws of physics. Regretfully, I'm not entirely convinced Arrow rises above these problems yet, and it really is a regret, because the show has clearly had a huge amount of funding put into it. Luckily for Green Arrow fans, CW has more faith in their show than I do and have already renewed it for a second season.

Arrow follows the story of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) who is the victim of a shipwreck, along with his father and the woman he was having a romantic encounter with at the time - which just happened to be the sister of his girlfriend, Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy). Straight off the bat we are shown glimpses into his character, that he is a spoilt playboy with the ego to match. Honestly, I have issues with the personality of his character and find him more arrogant than I would have liked. Thankfully, Oliver has his golden moments where he appears to rise above the arrogance, if at least for just one scene, and show us his potential to develop into a character you might one day find yourself caring for.

As the only survivor of the shipwreck, he is forced to live on an island inhabited by an unknown military group that have no interest in being friends and treat him with hostility from the first moment they see him, going as far as to torture him to get information on the one man living on the island who, separate from the military group, chose to help Olivier, instead of trying to kill him. After years of living on the island, learning to hunt and kill, Oliver is rescued by a fishing boat and brought back to civilization, where he finds his now ex-girlfriend working as a lawyer and still suffering from the grief over her sister's death, which she blames Oliver for. It is made worse by the over-the-top anger directed at him by her father, Detective Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne), who is literally out for blood and will do anything to bring the Queen family down. Luckily for Quentin, I like the actor who plays him, which allows me to forgive his psychotic antipathy towards Oliver.

Oliver comes back from the island a scarred man, haunted by his experiences on the island, but determined to fullfill a mission his father gave him in his last dying moments; to rid Starling City of the corrupt business owners who are slowly eating away at its heart. Taking it upon himself to rid the city of the names on his father's list, he turns vigilante and adopts a superhero identity, the Green Arrow, a modern day Robin Hood. Using his father's money, he develops batman style gadgetry to help him in his quest. The Green Arrow character is well known to be a rip off of Batman, and while the show does well to stray away from these roots, it is still clear that Arrow draws inspiration from the batman franchise. Both shows star billionnaire heroes that have nothing better to do with their time or money than use it to develop fancy toys and fight crime outside of the law. Future episodes will tell whether it manages to break away from batman and form its own image, or continues to steal concepts and ideas from its big brother.

One of my favourite characters in the show would have to be his bodyguard, John Diggle (David Ramsey), who in the line of duty, discovers Oliver's secret identity, but instead of reporting him to Laurel's father, Quentin, who is hunting the vigilante known as the "Hood", he instead chooses to help him fight against the crime bosses of the city. There is a depth to David's character that many of the others are missing, a past history involving other members of his family that I am very curious to learn more about.

The worst parts of this show would so far have to be the lack of opposition to Oliver's quest. The crime bosses offer no challenge to his all but invincible skills, although saying that, the latest episode showed us a glimpse of possible things to come, in the form of a well known antagonist from the comic; Deathstroke. And while it was not Oliver who fought him in the latest episode, hopefully soon the Hood will be in for the real fight I've been craving to see. Second to that would be the painful voiceovers that are riddled with Oliver's arrogant tone of voice and bad scripting.

Overall, the show has provided enough entertainment for me to keep watching, but I'm still waiting for that moment where the real story gets underway. From the looks of it, that story might start through the flashbacks to the island, rather than the activities he is getting up to in present time. Is Arrow worth watching? I believe so. Read More →