Adrian Lester, Simon Pegg and the Mark Rylance star in a glacially paced show where GCHQ staff seem like bored office workers, and the one-note dialogue feels like something from a kids’ novel
Be careful what you wish for, is the abiding message of the first episode of Channel 4’s new drama The Undeclared War.
Be careful what you wish for if you are Saara Parvin (Hannah Khalique-Brown, doing fine work in her first major television role), a superbright graduate who begins her work experience alongside the even superbrighter computer analysts at GCHQ on the very day (in 2024) the country is hit by a cyber-attack from an as-yet unidentified source. “55% of internet provision is down,” says the boss, Danny (Simon Pegg, in a sort of non-cartoon version of his Mission Impossible role). It appears to have targeted non-essential online services and is deemed: “Cleverly targeted for maximum disruption and minimal risk to lives.” Saara, however, proves superbrighterer than all of them and finds a second, hidden virus inside the first one that would have taken care of the other 45% and brought the country to its knees. She gets to sit in on a Cobra meeting – which feels unlikely, but no more unlikely than our own PM not turning up to most of his during a pandemic – but fails to make it to the hospital to see her father before he dies after an apparent suicide attempt.
