Black stuff makes the world go around.

We’re dropped straight into the action for this apocalyptic thriller. Wait – rewind a second, what the heck’s going on with that man in a sandstorm and who is the blind kid? Why should we care?

Episode 1 is told in flashback as we do indeed rewind and we learn that Andy and Elena have a young blind son, Sam, and a teenage daughter, Laura. Sam is about to have ground-breaking surgery and Laura Really Doesn’t Like™ her Dad’s Very Important job™. Why? He works for an oil company and she’s a climate change protestor. While she seems blind to her own hypocrisy, I’m sure there are many who can relate to some familial discord as a result of the fact that anyone old enough to have teenage offspring right now could probably have not played as fast and loose with the world’s finite resources.

Seeing as Andy is the one with the aforementioned Very Important Job™, he gets called to the Middle East just as Elena and Sam have to travel to Paris (ooh, is there trouble in paradise?) and Laura is left at a party back home in Blighty. Gosh, the whole family is split across three countries and two continents, I hope no global crisis strikes now, that would be so inconvenient.

Jumping back to the climate theme, I get the feeling our nightmares are going to be fuelled with the alarming speed of the spread of trouble… When energy demand strips availability and food chains and transport are disrupted… well, we are all living through the economic consequences of that one. What if the oil supply itself was suddenly dangerous? What if that was by nefarious design?

I find myself needing to find out, but there’s one fly in the sticky black ointment. That British government person / spy / agent / scientist… I know she’s there to help explain the narrative and ask one of the main protagonists all the questions the audience has, but could that be a little less obvious please? Like, stop with the questions in the car, he’s trying to read! I like my exposition a little less clunky. The cliffhanger’s good though.

Verdict: Andy, my friend, I’m going to need some answers. I’ll let you go ahead and read that report first, get back to me. 7/10

Claire Smith