A three episode mini-series that tells the story of the events in the city of Salisbury as faithfully as possible. The people who were involved in the events have been documented and interviewed to bring this dramatization to the small screen.
What happened in Salisbury?
In the year 2018, a sixty year old man and his daughter, after lunch and a walk, lose consciousness while sitting on a park bench. The girl foams at the mouth. Looks like food poisoning or an overdose.
No one could have imagined that this would be the beginning of a state of alert in the city, where action had to be taken in the face of a latent threat to public health.
The man and woman were taken to the hospital, but investigations revealed their identities. The man was a former Russian agent, who was a double agent of the British government. A spy as we have seen in many films. Everything indicated that he and his daughter had been poisoned with some substance. It was an assassination attempt, perhaps ordered by the Russian government and the act was committed on British soil.
The substance used to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal is called Novichok , designed by a secret Russian program, it is considered a lethal chemical weapon, it is a nerve agent that attacks the brain, making people lose control of all their organs. A small dose can kill a large number of people. More information about this chemical weapon can be found at this link
The mini-series consists of three episodes, in which everything is dramatized from the beginning, starting with the poisoning of the Skripal family, then one of the police officers becomes ill upon coming into contact with the substance and the measures taken by the government to determine the origin of the substance and prevent its spread. Of the three episodes, the second one seemed to me a little tedious, it is towards its end, which again moves, to reach the final stretch, with the fatal outcome for one of the people who will be affected.
The images of the first episode are very similar to those we have experienced recently around the world because of the Covid virus.
All the measures that had to be taken at Salisbury when these poisonings occurred are now better understood, as we have seen similar measures to prevent the spread of the virus that affects the world today.
The main protagonist is a character called Tracy Daszkiewicz, who has to plan the measures to be taken, to avoid a catastrophe, exists in real life and thanks to his work thousands of lives have been saved. All the protagonists of the stories told in the mini-series exist in reality. They all appear on the screen, when the mini-series ends.
The end of the mini-series is very emotional, with sensitive scenes that seek to make us shed a tear. I think they are overlooked by so much emotion. I felt a bit cloying with the millennium scenes at the family dinner. I would have liked a little more restraint. Of course, what happened was terrible, especially for the family of the only fatality, who had the bad luck to come into contact with the substance. The mini-series is dedicated in his memory.
It is not a political thriller, the whole part is treated in a superficial way, making only references to the British government's measures against Russia. If you expect a political thriller, this is completely out of the ordinary. The central axis is the story of what was done to prevent a great tragedy from happening and the drama experienced by those most affected. The television drama is well produced and directed, with a cast full of familiar faces on British television, as is customary, all at a high level.
I recommend this miniseries to all those who were not aware of what happened in 2018 in Salisbury, where Russian agents tried to assassinate a former spy, failing in their mission but putting an entire city in mortal danger.
*My Ranking: * 3/5
Trailer
