Mirage

Frankly, I started way it without any expectation. Just the storyline seemed intriguing. I know there are some plot holes, but considering the budget and production house it's pretty decent outcome. Stars gave solid performance, the locations were eye catching. Story of global corporate espionage ring added with a long lost love interest added the spice that was needed to carry the show.

Might not be a HBO/Netflix/Prime production standard but considering everything, it was decent. May be more than decent! Figure it out !

Overall the story is a giant meh. It tries very hard to be important and thrillerish, but ends up being generic and tiresome. The actors are not helping it at all, because they ooze apathy at any given moment, regardless how tense things are becoming. The dialogue is simple, to the point, with no useless emotional elaborations, space for character development, witty lines or anything that would put you in danger of feeling remotely connected or positive to what you're seeing. Basically, everyone just wants to move things along and get them over with.

BUT the desert scenes are beautiful. The shades, the colours, the buildings, the atmosphere they create. It might be a deeply personal thing, I just have something for large spaces filled with pale sand. And oh my goodness - the soundtrack!!! You can just watch the desert shots and listen to the soundtrack, and this could be your ultimate jam! Call me insane, but these are the two things I give 6/10 for. The rest can be recycled.

The glitzy ex-pat middle east is a big turn off and of course it is a major character as most locations tend to be. But if you can focus past that and get into the emotional heart of the characters then you have some chance of engagement in the thriller aspects of the plot. Marie-Josée Croze, the female lead, holds the screen very well, though some of her motivations were a bit far fetched at times. Clive Standen does tough guy running, fighting, safe breaking, driving dangerously all very well but the emotional close ups are not his forte. Considering this was a coproduction between Euro heavyweights it was not a spectacular success, but remains good, solid viewing that improves as you move through the 6 episodes. Clearly set up for a follow- up series, lets see if they get the cash. I'm sure the cast would like to do it all again.

Simply put - nothing is believable, unless you are a very simple person and you desperately wish that the world would work the way it's presented in this series.

These people work in the field of security? Believe it or not. Spies? Sure. Tsunami? What? 15 years, sure?

Who wrote this? Who directed this? We know who acted in this, and that's a shame. Yeah, it was the Viking dude camouflaged with a baseball cap that didn't fit his head, and then a bunch of various amateurs.

Despite of all this I managed to watch this till the end. This is because I've watched everything else. Already during the first episode, I had to switch to the moron mode so that I'd get through it, but this disaster continued with even worse plot twists one after other and it looked like it every episode was written a day before they shot it, but hey what can you do if you don't have anything else to do.

Clive Standen, I'm going to forgive you this time and hope you're going to make it. That's purely because of your high level of coolness in the Vikings. Like in the X-files, I want to believe.

Disappointing. Despite some potentially good plot elements it just doesn't work. The main characters motivations are stupid and the acting often hammy or flat. Don't waste your time.