If you read this blog then chances are that, like me, you know who Charlie Brooker is i.e. the most biting and blackly funny TV Critic working today. But there are few critics capeable of writing so well in a medium they frequently condemn (Mark Kermode has vowed never to try). It takes work to write good television, truly engrossing stuff, especially something that can tear me away from my smartphone. I watched the first installment, a satire on mass media and the court of public opinion, without pause. Compare to any given episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day, which I would repeatedly pause and you see the importance of being able to grip an audience.
The first edition, entitled The National Anthem, does this within the first few minutes. The setup, like the best, is simple but with complicated consequences and distinctly Brooker in its grim absurdity. Princess Susanna, the nation's sweetheart, has been kidnapped and will be killed unless Prime Minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) has sex with a pig. Sounds like a joke and the PM thinks so too, but outside Whitehall the wheels effortlessly turn to drive this 'joke' into the only option.
Over the course of the show we see the media supressed despite the situation already trending on Twitter. The information age is allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry to give their view regardless of how intimate the issue or foul their opinion. While the public supports the PM in the early stages when the grim reality sets in the tide turns. In one glorious scene Lindsay Duncan as the PM's Press Advisor lays everything clear. If Callow does not sacrifice dignity to save the life of a beloved young woman he will be destroyed. The press will condemn, the public will riot and no one will be able to garuntee his safety or the safety of his family.
While it is interesting to watch how the freedoms of Twitter, Facebook and other social media have lead to this shift in the influence of public opinion over politics The National Anthem still struggles with the plausibility of it all. When massive outrage and rioting cannot influence a descision of tutition fees how can we believe a Prime Minister would sacrifice anything just because the world calls for it. Almost makes Brooker sound naive but the man's genius is not in creating a believable scenario but in crafting a world driven by its absurdity. The story takes on a national scale encompassing politics, the press and members of the public all of whom act exactly the way you'd expect in such an event. Every character stands out as entertaining, pitiable, funny and above all real. They carry The National Anthem from start to finish culminating in a beautiful montage of mutual disgust.
The first installment of Brooker's trilogy definately deserves a watch, more thrilling than 24 and darker than Tramadol Nights, it sets the bar high for next weeks reality satire 15 Million Merits.
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