Episode #1.4

"The Night Manager" is two thirds gone, and things seem to be coming together. Roper has made Pine his man of straw on an arms deal, and Pine is more than happy to play the part. Angela keeps having problems and Jed has more than a passing interest in our protagonist.

Anything that happens in this episode is storytelling 101. There are not many surprises and it has been seen hundreds of times before, from Pine savvy personality, easy charm and resourcefulness, to Lance fall from grace. It happens too fast, actually, so fast that it is just a little bit of a stretch. That is what works the most against the episode, that Pine's rise seems a little bit rushed. Also there is the problem that Laurie's Roper is not much of a character actually, just your typical shady boss.

Nonetheless, the series keeps being entertaining enough, even if not original, and the acting is good. It is probably what saves it. It never falls into boring, but it should offer a little bit more to make it notable.

First of all, Susanne Bier is one of the worst directors working today. I'm sorry to say that, but she is just awful. The way she zooms the actors till their nostril hair is just despicable to watch and totally distracts from the story. I watch this series, because I love the novel and all novels by John le Carre in general. This series does definitely not deserve any praise, nor any positive review. The only reason why this series gets positive reviews, or rather high ratings is due to Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. Just because you have good actors, doesn't mean that the quality of the series is equally good. What outrages me the most are the fan girls who tend to view everything subjectively and don't distinguish between bad and good, or average. In this case, it must be enough for them to see Hiddleston almost naked in every episode or active in a sexual intercourse? Is he a sex object? As far as I've read in an article, he is a feminist, so he wants to balance the nudity in films. However, he seems to use his body and his fan girls to achieve a huge fandom and bigger roles. His ass was also a huge advertisement while promoting Crimson Peak. That kind of conception surely is not about balancing nudity, but using nudity to become popular! This is exactly what many women do: Using their bodies beyond their talents! Sorry, I can't praise that. Especially not then, when Hiddleston is a very awkward kisser. Have read that several times on the internet, too.

Apart from that, the reason why Susanne Bier is a terrible director (which was actually proved with her miserable movie "Serena") finds evidence in the fact that in this episode she used the location Marrakech, Morocco as ISTANBUL!! Does she think that people don't know how Istanbul looks like? I've visited Istanbul many many times and the Haydarpasha port SURELY doesn't look like that, nor do the hotels look arabic or oriental. Go on, just google for yourselves! Plus, the license plate numbers were not Turkish. You thought nobody is going to notice? I'm actually pretty sure that this is against the law, and if someone from Turkey notices that they will take legal action against the director and the crew of this series! You can't just use the name of a city and film it somewhere else!

All in all, I can say that Hugh Laurie is terribly wasted in this series.