The Undeclared War review – Enid Blyton could have written this cybersecurity drama

Be cautious what you want for, is the abiding message of the primary episode of Channel 4’s new drama The Undeclared War.

Be cautious what you want for if you’re Saara Parvin (Hannah Khalique-Brown, doing high-quality work in her first main tv position), a superbright graduate who begins her work expertise alongside the even superbrighter laptop analysts at GCHQ on the very day (in 2024) the nation is hit by a cyber-attack from an as-yet unidentified supply. “55% of internet provision is down,” says the boss, Danny (Simon Pegg, in a kind of non-cartoon model of his Mission Impossible position). It seems to have focused non-essential on-line companies and is deemed: “Cleverly targeted for maximum disruption and minimal risk to lives.” Saara, nevertheless, proves superbrighterer than all of them and finds a second, hidden virus inside the primary one that might have taken care of the opposite 45% and introduced the nation to its knees. She will get to sit down in on a Cobra assembly – which feels unlikely, however no extra unlikely than our personal PM not turning as much as most of his throughout a pandemic – however fails to make it to the hospital to see her father earlier than he dies after an obvious suicide try.

And you have to be cautious what you want for if, like me, you had been hoping The Undeclared War would ship the right dose of high quality hokum and escapism from the true world because it crashes and burns round us. A cyber-attack? What enjoyable! It doesn’t even come shut to creating the listing of anxieties I work by today. In reality, if that 55% included the transmission of every day headlines from across the globe, I might welcome it. “Bring on the temporary respite from the burden of awful knowledge!” I might cry.

Alas, The Undeclared War has taken the opposite route and is clearly designed to induct us all into a brand new area of fear. Created by the multi-award-winning Peter Kosminsky (who directed the sensible Wolf Hall) after three years of analysis into trendy intelligence and cybersecurity, the six-part sequence wears that analysis closely and takes itself very critically certainly.

It strikes at a glacial tempo and the GCHQ workers have the air of reluctant workplace employees on knowledge entry shifts, boredly tapping at their keyboards till it’s time for a statutory tea break – somewhat than individuals frantically making an attempt to carry off an enemy assault that could kill 1000’s and hurl the nation again to the center ages, or a minimum of the Nineties. While I’m certain this is much extra reasonable than the bullet-sweating heroes Hollywood provides us (though would there actually be such audible groans from codebreaking professionals when the boss tells them they have to return over the malware code?), it doesn’t present a lot in the best way of dramatic rigidity.

Kosminsky’s involvement presumably explains the looks of such heavyweights as Adrian Lester (prime minister Andrew Makinde, who apparently ousted Boris 15 months in the past), Alex Jennings (head of GCHQ, David Neal) and – nonetheless to return in later episodes – Mark Rylance (John Yeabsley, a former GCHQ asset introduced again to assist them take care of the assault). At the second – and just one episode was obtainable for review – they don’t have a lot to do. The focus on younger Saara’s discovery of the second virus banishes them to the sidelines in a lot the identical means because the grownups had been peripheral to an Enid Blyton journey. It additionally brings to thoughts the mild mockery of her setups by youngsters’s librarian Eileen Colwell – “But what hope has a band of desperate men against four children?” The script, too is Blytonesque. People say “We’re in!” loads, or “We’re offline!” or “It’s 70% reverse-engineered”, with out a lot in between.

At the second, The Undeclared War feels prefer it has aimed excessive and missed. But with 5 episodes to go, Kosminsky on the helm and a distinguished forged who, you’ll have thought, learn the entire thing earlier than they signed up, allow us to hope that drama and perception will each accrue. Maybe we are going to often go away the static setting of GCHQ and learn how life goes for individuals with out 55% of the web? If not, it would really feel like a wealthy premise squandered and we can be left hoping for a remake that leans into its potential as a high-quality contribution to the shiny tech nonsense style – one thing we could all do with at this tough time.

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