NBC Peacock, the 370th streaming service to debut in the past 12 months, will launch publicly on July 15 after an exclusive Xfinity soft launch earlier this year. This means that it is time to review the exclusive series of the service, although in the case of The capture, one of Peacock’s most captivating launch options, that “exclusivity” is regional.
Unlike peacock offerings like Brave New World and Intelligence, The capture it’s an import for American viewers as it aired on BBC Three online only in Fall 2019. But it’s still decidedly current: a mysterious thriller that revolves around fake technology and government mistrust.
Due process versus “real” videos
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Holliday Grainger shows us how to make looking at images from security cameras more compelling in her performance as DI Rachel Carey.
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Callum Turner as Shaun Emery in The capturepilot episode.
NBC Peacock / BBC
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Chances are, a security camera is watching Grainger here.
NBC Peacock / BBC
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Ron Perlman steals all of his scenes like the American token Frank Napier.
NBC Peacock / BBC
By turns exciting and suspenseful, The capture it is the kind of show that one could easily catch in one afternoon. (In keeping with BBC fashion, the first season of the series has six episodes.) It stars Holliday Grainger (Strike) as DI Rachel Carey, an SO15 agent on loan to Homicide and Serious Crime, who is involved in the case of former Lance corporal Shaun Emery, played by Callum Turner (Fantastic beasts: the crimes of Grindelwald)
Like many popular British imports, The capture it is a police procedure, in this case, one with anti-terrorist connotations. Emery, who has just been acquitted of murdering an unarmed Taliban insurgent during her tour of Afghanistan, is accused of kidnapping her lawyer, Hannah Roberts (Laura Haddock), after she refused to go home with him after celebrating your release. The case appears open and closed: The kidnapping was videotaped on a well-lit street, and facial recognition software positively identifies both sides. But Emery is puzzled by the charges, and when they show him the images from the security camera, he starts to freak out. This very credible looking video is not him. This incident did not happen.
The manipulated images lead the rabbit holes to a vast network of government plots. It’s a feat how the show turns this presumption into an exciting conspiracy journey, especially when so many plot points continually return to people who are standing watching events on CCTV (you know, the high-tech version of watching dry paint). Technology has been ubiquitous in British life; London has been referred to as “the most viewed city in the world”, a claim The capture repeated in its first episode. But the series focuses its attention more severely on the growing real-world problem of “fake videos,” in which computer-generated imagery can make people seem to say and do things that never happened.
Current
The capture It comes at a time when criticism of police procedures is mounting. The good news is that this series focuses on the corruption behind the badge, and when government forces bend the concept of “justice” to their whims. That angle becomes The capture Thanks to its false story angle: why demand due process if the video can create whatever evidence is necessary to convict? Without spoiling some of the twists, I will say that the program takes a clever way to explain how and why fake videos are used; The episode that reveals how everything is done is the highlight of the series. And the answers turn out to be as much about the government, bureaucracy, and state forces that they take some morally dubious routes in their goal of doing “good” for the world as it is about this technology.
But The capture It is not without controversy. In the end, the series seems to sympathize with at least one government position, claiming that the ends justify the means. Although the production understands that deepfakes have the power to change the world, it wants us to believe that this technology in the hands of the government is not something that we good people should be concerned about.
The capture, trailer of the first season.
One reason The capture It works just as well as the fascinating performance of Turner and Grainger. Graniger’s DI Carey has to do most of the heavy lifting here, trying to find evidence to prove that a date-time stamped CCTV footage section didn’t actually happen, only to turn around and find out that every time he He sits down to watch something that happens live, it does not coincide with what those on the scene tell him. Like the madman in this scheme, Turner’s character also spends much of the season questioning his own perception of reality, though his best moments come once he discovers the truth and has to confront why he has become an apparent pawn. in someone’s scheme. Ron Perlman also deserves special mention as the American evil token Frank Napier, which dominates every scene he finds himself in.
A world of various Beeb foods.
Whether a single series as good as The capture Makes it worth subscribing to Peacock is another question. And up to that point, British television lovers must contend with another transmitter to add to the ever-growing list. (Peacock will also have all Downton Abbey seasons, as well as his 2019 movie when it is released on July 15).
From Netflix’s full subsection of the BBC Two rate to exclusive Amazon Prime exclusives to HBO Max’s deal with BBC America, UK-based series are scattered across the landscape. And that doesn’t include niche streamers like AMC’s Acorn TV or PBS Passport, the subscription service that your local public television station offers along with mugs and bags as part of an annual membership.
The most puzzling thing about this is that both the BBC and competitor ITV already have their own streaming service in the United States: BritBox. The service arrived in 2017 with tons of old British shows, including all Doctor who episode that could be reasonably rounded from 1963-1989. The service continues to add content every month, but there is rarely anything current. Sometimes it offers direct streams from Beeb, like live coverage of the Queen’s Christmas speech, but that’s an extremely special insight. The result is that BritBox has had a hard time making a dent in the general public due to a lack of maintenance programs like The capture itself.
The increasing reliance of American broadcast networks on international series to maintain a steady stream of new titles is evidence of how much power the BBC currently has for eyeballs. Furthermore, British television is legendary for the quality it produces. Perhaps the licensing deals for America’s top streaming bidders have been too attractive, possibly more so than if the BBC and ITV were to bundle all their content for Britbox and create another subscription service. As things stand, we’ll just have to keep chopping our buns and tea together and subscribing to streamers like Peacock (with paid and free tiers, full of ads) for shows like The capture. We will have to wait and see if Peacock opens its virtual doors to the eventual second season of the series, recently announced.
NBC Peacock / BBC listing image
