Red Election

No, this ain't good enough. What could have been a decent classic political thriller just felt like hasty "direct to TV" work with a story that gets worse and worse the longer into the series you get.

Acting is questionnable. Lydia Leonard (and most of the ensemble actually) has the same facial expression throughout all 10 episodes and the amount of frustrated "fuuu*k" is impressive. Must be the most commonly used word in the whole series...

Nothing to waste time on unfortunately.

My Review- Red Election SBS on demand

My Rating 6/10

My Review on this 10 episode nearly 8 hour trip to nowhere will be brief as when we got to our destination which was confusing and unsatisfactory we realised the journey had been a waste of time.

I love a good John le Carré type espionage thriller and The Red Election started off with a sensational beginning that got us in straight away and then added a fictitious British Prime Minister much more appealing than Boris called Adam Cornwall ( Brian D'Arcy) . The P. M. Is trying his upmost against great odds to campaign for a NO vote in a referendum for Scottish Independence It's soon made perfectly obvious that a mysterious espionage cell code named Redback has been detected by British Intelligence and is working through agents behind the scenes to plan terrorist attacks and manipulate a YES vote to break up the United Kingdom and gain powerful influence Politically and Economically in Britain .

Red Election has a great cast all acting their socks off I particularly liked Lydia Leonard as Beatrice Ogilvy the daughter of the head of British Intelligence William Ogilvy whose also impressively played by Stephen Dillane .

Beatrice soon realises that work and family don't mix when Beatrice the most intelligent and suitable applicant for a huge promotion is vetoed by her father in favour of a much lesser qualified applicant Levi . Resentment of course causes friction and jealousy between the two but Beatrice sallies forth to investigate the mysterious events and disappearances in Copenhagen .

We're now introduced to Katrine the most mysterious and baffling character of all impressively played by Victoria Carmen Sonne that's enough no spoilers just in case anyone wants to invest 8 hours of unsatisfactory series binging.

Have you ever attempted a complicated jig saw and just as you thought the pieces were all starting to fit together the cat jumps on the table and scatters the pieces all over the place .

Well the Red Election is like that jig saw in my opinion it's far too long with far to many characters and sub plots that steer away from the bones of a great script.

I counted 9 different writers contributed to the ten episodes of Red Election a perfect example of too many cooks in the kitchen .

There was talk about a second series that's looking doubtful as I read recently because viewers haven't picked up the first series and that's a shame because if there ever was a cliff hanger ending Red Election had it .

It left us both asking is that really the last episode? Looks like it was..........

My feeling is you watched the first episode with a predetermined mindset/agenda you came out of it thinking that the it was a 'girlpower special' because the two main characters are women and they do dominate the screen time. But if you actually view the series you will find that *all* of the *main* characters in the drama are flawed. They are not two dimensional, there is depth there. That to me is the mark of good TV/film.

I really enjoyed this show, for once the secret service isn't depicted as full of sexy genius super heroes, they are all flawed human beings that make mistakes and then get on with it. I like the female lead, Beatrice, but the Danish one was so annoying I wanted to punch her. Some viewers were put off by the fact the main character was female but frankly, it added to the relationship between her and her Scottish contact who was clearly infatuated with her. Beatrice was strong but she screwed up, so did all the others. I loved Spooks, and I loved Stephen Dillane in GoT so I was interested in seeing him in another role after Stannis. I hope there's a Season 2, I'll be watching!

I have to agree with those of you who wrote that this is not by any means a brilliant show. However, I found the story line interesting enough to make me want to follow it through and I did actually enjoy it for that reason though I did have to allow for the far from adequate acting and dialog!