Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Katherine Waterston, Jodie Turner-Smith, Richard Gere, John Magaro, Harriet Sansom Harris, Saura Lightfoot Leon, India Fowler, Hugh Bonneville, David Harewood, Andrew Brooke, Reza Brojerdi, Alex Reznik, Bilal Hasna, Sabrina Wu, Kurt Egyiawan, Ambreen Razia, Adam Nagaitis, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Julia Westcott-Hutton, Dominic West, Edward Holcroft, Abdullahi Islaw, Elana Saurel, Juris Zagars, Olekandr Rudynskyy, Emma Lau, Curtis Lum, Sergej Onopko, Marcin Zarzeczny, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Akpore Uzoh, Violet Verigo, Alex Jennings.
The world of espionage has become so engrained into our collective psyche that for the most part it has become background noise to the genuine concerns of real life that inspires it.
The issue for some can come from the lack of perceived truth that is at the heart of the human story, the act of sacrifice for that person who sees through the cloud and thick fog of lies and forged emotions; and yet when a spy series reaches in beyond the machismo it can be a revelation, it can offer a greater depth of understanding to those audiences see as faceless figures countering threats and creating issues of trust wherever they go.
The Agency, which stars a veritable who’s who of names, such as the exciting and intensely driven Michael Fassbender, the charismatic Hugh Bonneville and David Harewood, and the cool and calculating expressions of acting legends in Jeffry Wright, Richard Gere, and Katherine Waterston, is a cut above the normal fare offered when television finds its way to examine the lives and activities of one of the foremost organisations that dedicate themselves to security and the presence of the American need for interference in world matters.
The intensity of its focused star, Michael Fassbender in the role of the operative codenamed Martian, resonates throughout the entire series and the cast themselves who see through the initial nervousness of the slow burn to deliver a piece of television that lands with an enormous thump as the action and the stakes heats up.
The genius of the series is its humility, the arrogance that a viewer might come to expect from the genre is not just glossed over, it is almost eradicated, its identity wrapped up in commitment rather than just unrelenting commercial violence.
That is not to say there aren’t any action sequences and scenes that shock the system, revelations of operations, it just happens with more of a natural air than you would find in a made for cinema dynamic.
An intense and organised drama, one that is understated in its own brilliance; a convincing and enthralling series worthy of the audience’s devotion.
Ian D. Hall