Last night saw episode one of new BBC ’suspense thriller’ Hunted. Written by Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) and produced by Kudos (Spooks, Life on Mars), I expected quality and we certainly got it.
Image: BBC/Kudos
It stars Melissa George as Sam Hunter, a highly skilled spy for a private intelligence company who survives an attempt to take her life. The show makes a fast-paced start, with a variety of shooting and hand-to-hand combat, showing that George has clearly moved on from her days on Home and Away!
After the attempted hit, Sam returns to full health, running in the hills (with some lovely scenery filmed in Scotland) and holding her breath while having a bath before returning to her job and colleagues after a year away, when they think she is dead.
Her colleagues, including Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) and Adam Rayner clearly don’t trust her, (with the latter being a former love interest) due to her disappearing for a year without saying why. That feeling is returned by Sam, who suspects that one of her colleagues is behind the hit.
The opening scenes were filmed in Morocco, with most of the series set to be filmed in London, including her current assignment, working for a rich family, while gathering intelligence on them for her employers, Byzantium.
So far, it’s difficult to tell who are the good or bad guys, if there are any good ones, with none of the characters being very likeable, with even Sam not being afraid to make a few cold-hearted kills when necessary.
The writers have managed to fit plenty of fast-paced action into the first episode, and from the look of the “next time” clip at the end, episode two will keep up the pace.
Hunted is on BBC One, Thursdays at 9:00pm
Watch Episode 1 on BBC iPlayer here
brilliant series nearly up to spooks standard
Loved the programme right until when the range rover was blown up !! shame they blew up a completely different car !! Could at least have changed the wheels to make it look more realistic,uptil that poit it was great and Patrick Malahide was excellent
final episode – was Sam killed or not – and who’se is the baby? (final shot)
Hunted was cancelled by the BBC, but it has been confirmed that a 2nd series will go ahead without them. http://seriable.com/hunted-season-2-spinoff/comment-page-1/
Please no more “Hunted”. No reasons and few resolutions. The actors playing Sam and Aidan were solid mahogany though the others were fine, especially Patrick Malahide. People murdered in broad daylight in central London and there is no-one on the streets! Ludicrous. Spooks was nonsense, I know, but it was credible with excellent acting. This was just tosh. The writers didn’t know what was going on either.
Paul
tony
“hat’s off to the bbc what great drama i only hope there is more to come” once again well done.
thought is was brilliant drama, wish they would be season two but heard it has been axed?is this true?
Frank Spotnitz should be ashamed of himself. This series should be credited to the great American J.J.Abrams as this whole thing is a British version of Alias replaced by a new girl but the story is exactly the same. Wait a minute, the girl has not been replaced. I remember now, Melissa George played a nobody in Alias when Jennifer Garner was the star of the show and rightly so.