The strength of the names in front of camera and behind it was what brought me to watch this series, despite not knowing much about the story. Our focus is a group of young people who break a political prisoner out of jail, forming a terrorist cell, and fighting directly against the Government and Police's attempts to quash any black power uprising in the UK in the 1970s. As a world it sounds interesting, and it is all delivered with high production values and a sense of time. However it doesn't hang together tonally or in terms of content – and I'm not sure why.
We jump around with characters and tones for the whole 6 hours. At times it is almost playful, others tragic; it focuses on messy romantic relationship and affairs; but it doesn't manage to produce a sense of things building as a whole – but rather it remains fragmented across characters, situations, and tone. It does do enough to be engaging, but it is never really compelling or gripping, and I think this is down to its construction as a drama. As I say, cast and production values are all good and plenty to comment on, but they are mostly well served in the moment rather than the sweep.
That said, for all its faults, it is too well made to be bad; I enjoyed it while also wanting more from it – and the conclusion felt like a cop-out to get a second season, while also getting rid of its biggest scheduling challenge if it did go ahead.
