Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10
Cast: Archie Panjabi, Christopher Plummer, Kris Holden-Ried, Rebecca Liddiard, Tamara Duarte, Mark Rendall, Peter Mensah, Claire Forlani, Alexandre Bourgeois, Shazad Latif, Kristian Bruun, Sasha Roiz, Chantelle Han, Allan Hawco, Dougray Scott, Chloe Farnworth, Paris Jefferson, Ryan Pierce, Tyler Fayose, Emilio Doorasingh, Mark Lutz, Evan Buliung, Raoul Bhaneja, Sydney Meyer, Emmanuel Kabongo, Ai Barrett, Rachel Bles, Scarlett Rousset, Dmitry Chepovetsky, Akbar Kurtha, Wanda Ventham.
Just because you label it a conspiracy theory doesn’t always mean that you are wrong, or that your speculation is born of some deep-rooted scepticism about the way the world works; such is the volume of the everyday occurrences that it just takes one event to be out of synch with our reasoning and then we start to search for others, suddenly, and without warning, the whole system of belief is turned on its head.
Conspiracy is big business, and it is not only the individual that enjoys debating the intricate details of many of the ways the world has been, in their eyes, duped. However, and as delightful a game it can be, and with often surprising results, a good conspiracy is something best left at times to those with something to gain, rather than the odd random collusion that doesn’t reek of a rushed plan or half-developed plot.
If conspiracy is just a businessman’s way of controlling the future, then aviation is perhaps a growth market, and in the television series Departure, the idea of treachery is one that, at least on paper, is highly intriguing and acts on the fears that we have in placing trust in a form of transport which in recent years has been at the centre of guided destruction and perplexing mysteries.
Where Departure might act as a genuine insight into the inner workings of how business often works, save a few pounds here to gain millions overnight, it leaves though a cautionary note for the viewer in how to approach such scheming without lending itself to the over-written and the presence of short-cuts.
The issue with Departure isn’t just down to the stretching of the story, it also veers wildly off course to how such series should be portrayed, we may like to believe we live in a world which is filled with the smooth flow of living, that the city around us is a nurturing environment and a testimony to humanity’s inspiration, instead it is gritty, the stench of foul play is nauseating, and whilst television does its best to offer a resolution to such stories, in Departure it is all too convenient, too reigned in, and across the six episodes the feeling of neatness is often felt to be bubbling under the surface, and one that doesn’t add anything to the expansion of story-telling.
Ian D. Hall