Blackout

A very modern and stylised BBC thriller starring Christopher Eccleston as a corrupt councilman, prone to alcoholic blackouts which eventually see him have a torrid affair with a married woman he's picked up in a bar and frenziedly kill the businessman who's bought his favours in awarding important contracts.

I like Eccleston in most things he does, but even he can't pull this morass together, in a plot full of unlikely and improbable links and coincidences. For one one thing his character is torn between three women, his long suffering wife included (Dervla Kirwan) and also turns to another, a fairy godmother nurse who just happens to be a recovering alcoholic herself, dispensing wisdom to both him and, unbelievably, his young son who's also lately started to show anti-social tendencies of his own. Incredibly, one of the other women he gets involved with is the daughter of the man he killed and to top it all, the husband of the third one, the married woman who somehow seems to fall for Eccleston when he's at his drunkest, turns out to be the jealously obsessive type and also the detective who puts himself on the line to help Eccleston out of the mess he's in.

Wrap around this a further sub-plot on council corruption, with the main insider in favour of the big bad private corporation going out with and making pregnant Eccleston's lawyer sister and I think you'll see that there was more than a little going on in the narrative department. I found it an absolute mess which no amount of flashy camera angles and pounding background music could make appealing or even in the slightest degree even close to credible. The "accidental hero" plot device was as unconvincing as any other part of this oversensationalised nonsense.

Eccleston and Kirwan are okay in their over and underwritten parts respectively while Andrew Scott (so good as Moriarty in "Sherlock") does the best he can as the agonised detective.

As I watch this, I'm also halfway through watching another BBC thriller mini-series "Line Of Duty", every minute of which has kept me on the edge of my seat. This lame, clumsy effort however gave me a problem hanging on to the edge of my reason.

Daniel Demoys is an ambitious, but flawed councillor, an alcoholic and corrupt. One night Danny meets with builder Henry Pulis, who ends up dead, Danny covers is tracks, but is thrown into the public eye after an act of bravery.

It's a curious drama series, I didn't remember it, but did watch it, looking back I get why I'd forgotten it, as there's nothing particularly memorable about it, however it's worth a chance.

The story is a fine one, it's very nicely written, with some cracking ideas, unfortunately the production values are somewhat irritating, it's over produced, and chaotic to watch at times. Expect tonnes of cutaways and jaunty angles, I'm glad that isn't the norm these days.

There are a couple of plot holes, and a few strands that we just don't get answers to, the main one of course being, did he actually do it?

Very well acted, Eccleston and Bremner steak the show, I'd argue they were guilty of under utilising the likes of Wunmi Mosaku, David Hayman and even Andrew Scott.

It's worth a few hours of your time.

7/10.

There have been many fine political dramas made by the BBC over the years; Christopher Eccleston was famously in one of the best ('Our Friends in the North'); but sadly, 'Blackout' is not destined to join them. Set in an un-named city, all the details of which are deliberately vague, 'Blackout' features a complex plot relayed almost entirely in outline: we see characters talking about events after they have happened, sometimes show to us in flashback (or even premonition) but almost never directly relayed. The writer may be trying to be clever here, but the real power of visual drama is the ability to portray the seat-of-the-pants feeling of something as it's actually happening: this has all the emotional pull of a script meeting. And the conspiracy-based plot is in a pertinent area for modern Britain, but is actually less shocking than the truth (that the sort of developments it portrays are happening on their own, without any need for murder and blackmail). Sometimes, the devil is in the detail; for a drama to work, one has to believe in the life of the people it portrays.

I can only assume that the authors were deeply depressed when they were creating this... stuff. But it still doesn't explain how we can possibly have BBC series with totally none funny scene in it. It's only darkness, everything is so hopeless that you're stopping believing those people are real. And then, a film that has no positive characters at all? You don't feel like sympathizing to any of them. All they do is lie, cheat, deceive, force and, easily, kill. Oh yes, and shout. All the time. Was it a kind of anti-Utopia? I don't know. But it could be better... mainly if it weren't there at all. I'm giving it three stars, one for Eccleston, one for Dervla and another one for camera work.

'Blackout' is what I would call a tense, character driven, political 'Neo Noir Thriller' series from BBC. Christopher Eccleston effortlessly plunges himself into the role of an abject alcoholic who still just does manage on as a respected councilman. He has many flaws - prostitutes, drinking, and work fraud to name a few - but his fatal flaw, which we don't ever really get any kind of clinical read on, is one of self-hatred. Never-the-less, with his one sober-fueled but brain-numbed act of gravitas, our sad protagonist changes direction and begins a very interesting, yet fraught-filled course.

The premise of this series is quite interesting. There are those who are evil and we know it, and there are kinds of evil operating behind the scenes, so-to-speak, that keep us off balance.

Eccleston handles himself very well as the lead, Daniel Demoys. In fact, this was my first opportunity to see him in a lead role and I was very impressed. Demoys' wife (Alex), Dervla Kirwan, is also a heavy hitter in this series. She more than carries her role, as usual. The busy actor, Ewan Bremner(Jerry Durrans), brings intensity and drama with his deep set, closely paired eyes sitting atop that hawk-like nose, drilling his opponents down with however much authority he wishes to personify.

As an aside, the Producers/Directors have dealt very well with inserting the cycle of alcoholism and family dynamics into the series. That is something of which we do not see enough.

'Blackout' ends in such a way that can be considered resolved or, hopefully BBC will consider following the lives and crimes of those we are left wondering about. So many loose ends or further mysterious trails to ponder...?