A Mumbai delivery driver finds himself hired for a deadly mission transporting a mystery cargo across India.

Did you hear the one about the Hindu, the Muslim and the Sikh? If that question sounds like the feed for a rather suspect joke, I promise you it isn’t. Rajiv Joseph’s fabulous script for the fifth episode of Extrapolations is rooted in a completely recognisable, if scarily sweaty future reality, but also laced with motifs from fairy tale, parable and fable.

Adarsh Gourav (best known outside of India for his captivating lead performance in The White Tiger) plays Gaurav, a weary, browbeaten delivery driver from Mumbai where temperatures are so high there is a day time curfew and citizens are only allowed out at night. He is reluctant to take on a job with a mystery cargo that necessitates he take Neel (Gaz Choudhry), an amputee war veteran, all the way to Varanasi on the other side of the country, but the fee isn’t one he can afford to turn down.

What follows is a gritty, thrilling road movie with a good deal of reluctant buddy drama thrown in for good measure. Theirs is a fractious relationship, but one that works well when faced with a violent police ambush and the realisation that their cargo has made them the prey in a deadly pursuit.

This is what I’ve been waiting for in terms of exploring the future from the point of view of those who have to live it, and suffer its worst extremes. There is no lecturing, just survival, while the global significance of their task is buried satisfyingly beneath the gripping narrative surface.

I don’t want to say more about the story because it’s such a beautifully structured piece of writing, with some glorious twists and turns, that to do so would be to spoil the viewing experience. However, there has to be a massive congratulatory shout out to newcomer Gaz Choudhry, formerly an Olympic wheelchair basketball player, here making an incredibly confident screen debut as the amputee army veteran. He has a great physical presence and more than holds his own alongside his far more experienced co-star. Choudhry is a name to watch, and I hope casting directors around the world are paying attention. While Adarsh Gourav is well known (especially on the sub-continent) the casting here is far less distracting, which finally allows the storytelling in Extrapolations to breathe.

Verdict: 2059: Nightbirds is by far the most successful episode so far. It’s compelling, sophisticated, layered, free from info-dumping and entirely believable throughout. Great great script, great acting, great TV. 10/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com