Hostage

What to say about this, sounds good on paper but so poor in execution.

Many, many 'surely that's not the way that would be done' moments but the standout for me by far was the team of French Special Forces apparently being transported in an Apache AH64...clearly a 2 seater helicopter...which the French don't use. Just lazy production.

These kinds of shows always demand suspension of disbelief for their twists to work. In the vein of Tom Clancy and other political action thrillers, the fun is to be had in the (sometimes immense) moments of incredulity. The more wild so much the better. In the end, it's a power fantasy, and this time it centres women, which, for me, breathed a bit of fresh air in an otherwise fairly trite subgenre.

It's not amazing, but it's certainly far from terrible. Good production, decent acting, and good pacing help it along as well. 5 episodes is perfect. I hope more shows take notice. The 8+ episode length for stuff like this always feels like filler.

Did it reinvent the wheel, no, was it meant to..... no!

Was it entertaining for a few hours to just sit down and switch your brain off after a long, yes!

I think people have forgotten the art of just relaxing, and just putting on some fluff to pass a few hours, and if everyone thinks that everything has to be high art these days, or written perfectly to meet your unrealistic expectations, you'll never be happy.

I rewatched Avengers Endgame recently, and is dumber than a bag of spiders, but thats just what I wanted that night, and that's one of the highest grossing movies ever made..... this was less dumb, perfect no, completely unrealistic yes, but why does every movie/show now have to meet a bunch of armchair critics expectations or else its "terrible writing", "unrealistic", "worst thing I've ever seen".

You all need to start chilling out, and if something passes sometime for a few hours, you should be grateful people are making anything to help you pass the time in your little lives, this certainly was not the worst thing I've seen, and I appreciate the effort the makers/actors/and esp the crew put in to give you something to make time passing a little less boring.

I'm a fan of the lead actress Suranne Jones. I have liked pretty much everything she's been in. Intrigued by British accent of the French President's French husband. Hmmm lots of confusing plot twists. Honestly Netflix has way worse shows.

This last bit is on length required for reviews. Why 300 words?

Did I hate it? No. Would I watch it again? Also no. Nothing really wrong with the show, and it kept me interested enough to see it through. That said, when under review, it really falls apart in an amateurish way. Too many wild plot twists and gaps that felt rushed and uninspired. The ridiculous number of security breaches and oversights made British and French intelligence agencies look like Scooby-Doo. A few characters like the PM's daughter, were incessantly annoying and didn't add anything to the story. I didn't mind the political threads, but they felt tacked on and mostly ended up as red herrings with little connection to the antagonists' actual motives.

All that said, it still managed to entertain me. It's not a show anyone will be talking about for weeks to come, but it's worth a watch if you've got a free night to binge something.