The Last Enemy

With Sherlock‘s Benedict Cumberbatch, Masterpiece Contemporary‘s mini series The Last Enemy was chilling and suspenseful. When Steven Ezard’s NGO activist brother dies, the aloof mathematician returns to London for the funeral. For years he’s been working in China where no one can bother him.* He doesn’t recognize this “new” London with its national id‘s and tight, high tech security. Within hours of his arrival he’s swept up into intrigue. Steven soon becomes intrigued and then smitten with his brother’s wife Yasim, a doctor who’s secretly caring for an wanted woman who’s dying of a mysterious disease.

When Yasim disappears, Steve agrees to act as a spokesperson for a security system the government wants to implement, Total Information Awareness (TIA). TIA makes Orwell’s Big Brother look like child’s play. This insidious system can tell the government everything you’ve done, everywhere you’ve gone, everything you’ve bought, considered buying, you name it. By talking up TIA, Steven gets handsomely paid and gains access to everyone’s intimate data so he can track down Yasim. Of course, more nefarious characters want to track her down and to keep Steven in their pocket. Once he proves to be less docile than they figured, he becomes a target.

The mini-series kept me on the edge of my seat and really made me want to live off the grid. If that’s possible . . . yes, national i.d. and more efficient data aggregation has it’s dark side, a very dark side.

I liked that this dystopia didn’t look grungy and decrepit. It looked real, which is how I think it will look if we come to that. Good performances by the whole cast.