Review: Danny Boyle’s cop-drama ‘Babylon’ is a winner

[Editor’s’ Note: this review is based on the original Babylon pilot which aired in the UK in February. According to listings, the Friday January 8th Sundance episode is Episode 1 of the program which aired in the UK in November. My impression of the show, based on the first several episodes and reflected here, stands.]

Co-created by Danny Boyle for UK television, the darkly entertaining 7-episode cop drama Babylon comes to US TV’s Sundance Channel beginning Friday, January 8th. Indie film favorite Brit Marling (Sound of My Voice, Arbitrage) stars as Liz Garvey, a US public relations expert recruited by London’s Metropolitan Police Service to handle the press and help improve the force’s image in the community. Her ideas about openness and transparency, however, run at odds to the old guard police administration as well as her bitter new deputy (Bertie Carvel) who was hoping to be promoted into the position she’s taken over. Irish actor James Nesbitt (Five Minutes of Heaven) plays Liz’s new boss, Police Commissioner Richard Miller.

While Marling and her fish-out-of-water story has the show’s primary focus (at least in the first few episodes), this is really an ensemble show not dissimilar to NBC’s classic Hill Street Blues (no quality comparison intended) where the interdependent stories of police administration, police staff and street cops are all explored. Each episode focuses on a single incident – in the pilot, a sniper is on the loose in London – and show each of the different character groups are impacted and how they respond.

While Babylon has been billed as a dark comedy or a comedy drama, it’s really more of a straight up drama with darkly humorous overtones… again, not dissimilar to Hill Street Blues. What will be interesting is how the dim view the show takes of many of the hooliganish street cops will play in the current environment of anger in the US over the recent high profile police shootings. On the other hand, further episodes of the show reveal a greater evenhandedness in the portrayals. There are good cops and bad cops, good administrators and bad administrators. The show ultimately is more interested in the dramatic tension between all the different forces at play than it seems to be in passing judgment on one or another.

Marling is terrific in the lead and her character is another strong (but flawed) TV female. While Liz is challenged at every turn from above and below – not so much because she’s a woman, but because she’s an outsider threatening to bring change – she never backs down. She’s brilliant and motivated, has complete confidence in her abilities and is never afraid to try to push her agenda. She also has an instinct for when to be nice and when to be mean in order to get what she wants. Nesbitt is also fantastic as the more guarded Commissioner Miller. While he has his own agendas and also feels the pressure from those above and below him, he has the intelligence (in the first few episodes at least) to trust Liz. He bristles at her presence, but mostly capitulates to her suggestions, even if it’s usually on his own terms. Nesbitt’s portrayal dances uncomfortably between benevolence and menace. While he seems resolved for the moment to be an ally, it’s clear he’d turn on Liz without a second thought the minute it was politically expedient.

Babylon works really well on an episode by episode basis. It’s gripping, funny and entertaining and the supporting characters get more interesting as they’re sketched in more fully. What remains to be seen is whether the show holds its momentum and builds to something bigger as the different character threads overlap and develop over time. All signs so far are that the creative folks behind the show know what they’re doing. I’m hooked for now and Sundance has another winner on its hands.