The State Within: Episode Four

(S01E04) The complexity and confusion which characterised earlier episodes of this conspiracy theory drama are all but gone as it heads for the home straight, but I still have a few nagging doubts over some of the actors and a few questions over dialogue.

However, the show really turned a corner this week, with a significant plot element revealing itself, thereby helping to spell out the real motives behind the terrorist plane bomb in episode one, the mysterious mercenaries in episode two, the execution of Luke Gardener last week -- and where Sir Mark Brydon and secretary of defense Lynne Warner fit in to the whole affair.

The most significant development in this week's episode was the introduction of Eshan Borisvitch, the former leader of Tyrgyztan who arrived to spend time at the British Embassy in Washington with Brydon and Warner in a bid to oust President Usman's and restore himself to power.

However, the plans completely backfired, and Brydon soon discovered he had a mole in the Embassy -- which was compounded by Borisvitch's assassination in a public park while meeting with his brother-in-law, James Sinclair.

Elsewhere, human rights lawyer Jane Lavery uncovered Luke Gardener's 'pack' -- an orgy of evidence clearly designed to blow the whole story wide open -- which revealed that Luke Gardner was part of a massive conspiracy to overthrow Borisvitch in the first place, and train the terrorists who would blow up the trans Atlantic flight, then bury the evidence afterwards.

Unfortunately, Luke was working for Armitage, the military contractor formerly headed up by secretary Warner.

And then the whole can of worms opened up and spilled itself on to the carpet for everyone to see; ie. Warner and her staff directly complicit in the murder to US and British citizens.

Or was it just another smoke screen?

Either way, the tension jumped up a gear, the plot thickened and Sir Mark soon found himself in deeper trouble than ever before -- with his one-time bed partner Lavery targeted for a hit as the show staggered to a conclusion.

The State Within has undoubtedly proven itself in the four episodes (of six) so far, with more than enough drive in the plot -- albeit somewhat over-complicated at first -- and a decent set of characters to push it along.

However, I'm frequently distracted by the lack of imagination in the dialogue, with characters frequently uttering banal language found only in cheap pulp crime novellas and rotten B-movies, and utilising dodgy American accents to boot -- which could have been entirely avoided by employing half-decent US-based actors in the first place (the token Sharon Gless aside).

Despite this, it's got me hooked to see the whole thing through to the end, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the characters we're being led to believe are baddies, are actually goodies with a very complex agenda.