The Looming Tower

Totally engrossing series. Like an extended Zero Dark Thirty prequel. Absolutely excellent.

Fantastic show, great script and acting. Looses a point for the unnecessary sex scenes every episode with Jeff Daniels having sex with different woman. Shows the failures within the Government and complete lack of transparency between the FBI and the CIA and the Government's unwillingness to take the time to understand the implications and complexities of the Middle East which as we know the West is still in 2022 facing the repercussions of with terrorist attacks such as domestic and recently ISIS. Pacing is good but could have been better without so much for focus on Jeff Daniels sexual affairs.

The whole series was fine, as other reviews suggest. As an Arab, it is irritating to see all the Arabic language spoken in this series was from an egyption Dialect, regardless of their origin/nationality.

I had to watch the whole series twice, mainly to identify the "good" and "bad" players. It certainly doesn't speak well of the CIA. Amazing performances, by all players, but Jeff Daniels and Tahar Rahim were outstanding. Curious about Ali Soufan, I watched several interviews with him, and Tariq nailed his accent/speech totally. We all know how it ended, but this series adds to the human element, the frustration and ultimate sadness.

When I read that there was a TV adaptation of Lawrence Wright's book I had great hopes. The result is not disappointing, the show is quite good, Jeff Daniels is perfect in his role and the story of John O'Neill is perfect for a movie. But the writers decided to focus only on the final part of the book, which details the internal wars between CIA and FBI which allowed the 9/11 plans to proceed unchallenged. The first part of the book, which describes the history of bin Laden and al Qaeda, starting from the ideology of Qutb, would have been much more interesting to understand what is going on in the world today. But I understand that story would be perhaps more suitable for a documentary than for a TV show, but it's a story that Wright wrote beautifully at that will deserve to be put on screen someday.