The Undeclared War

THE UNDECLARED WAR 10 reasons to watch this bingeable series by armen pandola

The title of this British TV 6-episode series, streaming on Peacock, refers to the cyberwar being waged by Russia against the West, and, in particular, Great Britain. But this is no polemic drama in which the good guys are always Americans or their nearest relatives, the Brits, and the bad guys are always Putin or, at least, Russian.

The Undeclared War follows a team of top analysts with GCHQ (the United Kingdom's version of the USA's National Security Agency) who are trying to prevent Russian social media tweets and news stories from destabilizing the country just before the 2024 elections.

Here are ten reasons to give it a watch:

10. Seamlessly woven into the drama is the method used by Russia to create fake social media accounts and use them to create chaos in Great Britain. It's really not that hard to do. If you know what you are doing and what you want to accomplish.

9. While the framework of the drama is this BIG story, the stories of the people who are the footsoldiers and generals of this war provide the emotional base upon which all good dramas - and comedies for that matter - are based.

8. Simon Peeg. Peeg is at the center of two of the biggest modern movie franchises - Star Trek and Mission Impossible. Amidst all those warp speed treks and almost impossible to accomplish feats of fantastic actions, you may have missed what a fine actor Peeg is. Here, he plays the lead analyst who is under pressure to stop the attacks and, also, retaliate.

7. It's British. I don't know how or why but the Brits just know how to do shows like this - political but not polemical, dramatic but not morose, topical but not typical. From Yes, Minister to A House of Cards (remember this is the British original, 1000x better than the American show of the same name) to A Very British Coup, the Brits know how to do contemporary political drama.

6. Hannah Khalique-Brown. Yes, you never heard of her, but you will. She plays Saara Parvin who wins an internship at GCHQ, but is conflicted on taking this job with the UK's prime spy agency since they do a lot of spying on Saara and her fellow Muslims. Her personal life ends up being almost as complicated as her professional one.

5. Maisie Richardson-Sellers. She plays an American analyst with NSA temporarily on loan to the GCHQ. Of course, she's British - yes, if I hadn't read that, I wouldn't have known. Her accent is perfect. More importantly, she acts and speaks with the authority that a NSA spy would have in dealing with the very much less formidable British equivalent. If you have never seen her before in her short career - look out!

4. The writing. Declan Lawn, Adam Patterson and Amelia Spencer have very few writing credits, but this series is going to change that. In one scene, Marina Yeselova (Tinatin Dalakishvili) has been sent to London as a TV journalist for the Russian TV News channel. She is sent to cover a demonstration where a riot breaks out and she suspects that the Russians had planned the riot. She confronts her editor who readily admits that they did. Look, her editor says, we are here to make people doubt the truth of what the other news shows are saying and what the politicians are saying. What good will that do? She asks. Make people think everything they are told is a lie and then - the biggest liar wins.

3. The director. Peter Kosminsky directed White Oleander 30 years ago. Since then, he hasn't worked much - a few TV movies and then there was the Wolf Hall series in 2015 and The State series in 2017 and that's it. He deserves to work more. He is credited with co-writing the first episode, also. One of the most imaginative things that he and the other writers have done is to make the search for the implanted malware a real experience - so we see Saara searching through an eerie landscape for something like a bomb as the visual equivalent of searching through code for the malware that is ready to explode and cause panic.

2. The ensemble. Again, with the Brits, it's all about having fine acting from the leads right down to the 'chorus' - the actors who play the many roles required in a sprawling drama of this kind. Mark Rylance shows up and for once has the perfect part for him - a low-key, long-time employee of GCHQ who doesn't like too many people and the feeling is mutual. Every actor and actress is pitch-perfect in portraying a world where anxiety is the sixth sense.

1. Trump is never mentioned.

I don't know who these types are that are calling this show 'Inaccurate'. They certainly don't work with software!

I'm just bowled over by the accuracy. The whole setup, and the tech, is completely believable and obviously researched. Simon Pegg's influence? (Probably not, he's not a producer on this.)

The physical metaphors with corridors and walls and doors are essential, and I'm quite enjoying them - laypeople have NO idea what it looks like going through dense code. Especially slogging through code that's written by somebody else, let alone an adversary. This visual storytelling mechanism greatly eases things.

Also the portrayals of high-functioning Autism are, finally, actually right on the money.

But I'm only two or three episodes in, and I fear it is going to dissolve into mush. None of the characters are very likeable, but perhaps that's deliberate. The mains all ooze upper-class UK elitism, and the lead character trots out her religion whenever it suits her.

We'll see.

First of all, this series did not strike me as being particularly 'woke', nor did I witness any aspect of the series that remotely resembled 'leftist propaganda'. This is a show that depicts politicians and GCHQ staff who don't all happen to be male and white. Some are, some aren't. That's all. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the writers seem to have made a genuine effort to avoid political or ideological bias altogether. At its heart, it is very much a character-driven story that doesn't concern itself with hidden agendas.

Be that as it may, 'The Undeclared War' is a Mini-Series not without it's flaws. A few instances of below par acting and the occasional minor plot hole prevents it from making its ascension into the very top tier of television, but it ultimately succeeds in achieving what it intends to achieve - telling a story as nuanced as it is engaging, whilst borrowing just enough source material from the political reality we all know well to present itself as a compelling and thought-provoking warning call to us all.

Even in light of its flaws, 'The Undeclared War' most certainly achieves what it intends to achieve. It doesn't quite achieve what it promised to achieve, however. It doesn't work quite as hard as say, the BBC's 'Years & Years' did, to hook its audience with the type of emotional depth and innovative dynamism that leaves their tears destined to fall and their jaws destined to drop. Nevertheless, its carefully developed storyline, sharp dialogue, and explosive plot twists ensure that it still achieves just enough to merit a solid 7/10 rating.

This series divides opinion, but is well worth trying. The stop-start pacing with regular diversions to fill in blocks of background is a common gripe. In that sense if you liked Ozarks (we did) perhaps you will like the pacing, However, it all moves along quite nicely regardless.

Our main criticism would be a British Prime Minster who is completely unbelievable and GCHQ itself, which I imagine will have actual staff hopping about in frustration at the unflattering portrayal.

Not a classic, a bit wokey, but pretty good and very watchable if you find it works for you. Suggest ignore the somewhat dire comments of some and judge for yourself. You only need to watch one episode to weigh it up, which is pretty handy.

The elephant in the room is that the subject matter of this series is very relevant and real. For those people who don't understand how the world works, this has probably flown over their collective heads. Yes, it's a drama series, but it's done very well. This is tight, clever, thought provoking writing. In today's ever changing world, it's refreshing to see something that takes chances and delivers. This definitely deserves your attention. Highly recommended.