mathmojo-imdb This is the same, formulaic, paranoid, dystopian crap that's done over and over, but with a different McGuffin. Cumberbatch, is as always, excellent, but can't save the general unoriginality of this thing. Really sorry I rented the first DVD, will not rent any more of it.

Sally Warner Brilliant acting from Benedict Cumberbatch again as the tortured genius and convincing as being the man who falls in love and will do anything to help the woman.I loved it engrossing, involving and a great premise. As an aside I am a software tester and the testing of the system by Stephen is exactly how I test new systems - the only time I have ever seen anything like it on the screen - that was very cool.I love British dramas they don't hit you on the head with everything they give you time to think about it - how a plan with the best intention will be subverted by the people who believe they have our interests at heart however they won't tell us about it.Please can we have more like this:-)

blanche-2 I really hate giving anything with Benedict Cumberbatch in it a 6, but this time I have to."The Last Enemy" has a brilliant premise that practically has happened - total information about everyone at all times in the UK. A mathematician, Stephen Ezard (Cumberbatch), who has been working ivory tower style in China, returns to England for his brother's funeral. There, he meets his brother's widow Yasim (the gamine Anamaria Marinca). In her unhappiness and loneliness, she reaches out to Stephen (it's Cumberbatch, who could resist) and he falls madly in love with her.Stephen's ex-girlfriend works for the government and recommends him to help with a new information system, TIA (Total Information Awareness), the ultimate information gatherer. With the job comes the promise of funding his work. Stephen uses his access to TIA to investigate what happened to his brother.Okay, that's sort of plot one. Plot two is a virus that's killing people in the middle east. It is impossible to discover the etiology of the virus because a) the bodies are destroyed immediately so no one can get a blood sample; and b) bioscientists are suddenly dying left and right.My major problem with this series is that the writer waited too long to meld these two plots. The other problem for me was Robert Carlyle, an excellent actor, but was he a good guy or a bad guy? I'm embarrassed to say I never figured it out.Otherwise, the story is chilling because it's becoming true. And the performances - Cumberbatch is perfection as a man forced into reality and absolutely terrified. I don't think I've ever seen a male character in anything act this frightened, but it is right on. He had great chemistry with Marinca, who did a fine job as well.Definitely worth seeing, though your attention may drift from time to time. This could have been a fantastic miniseries if it had been put together just a little better. Very thought-provoking nonetheless.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU A series that is a prodigiously well-knit plot, so well-knit that we can wonder what the truth is in the end. It is a lot more than just a rewriting of Big Brother with all the cameras everywhere and the tracking chips in the shoes, belts, or even under the skin. All that is covered up by the imposed ID card which is supposed to concentrate opposition while the necessary software are tested to identify the eyes, the finger prints, the figure and who knows what else of every single person. The new generation of trackers are infinitesimally small molecules injected or simply incorporated in the body of a person even be it only via a drink and then the person is tagged for life, and even beyond. The series here shows how an experiment went wrong, not really wrong but actually came out dirty. A set of these tags were injected to thousands of refugees in Afghanistan in some kind of innocuous medical injection, and that tag had the capacity to recognize the genes of the person and then to kill one particular human family, Arabs in that case. The film on such a point is badly informed since in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan the people are of Indo-European stock and not Semitic, and wrong again if you wonder how such a tracker can make the difference between a Jewish Semite and an Arab Semite? But never mind such details. They were testing a genetic weapon that could annihilate a whole population in a few days, in other words an illegal genocidal genetic weapon. They even doubled up the demonstration by making the only British citizen who got the tag recover within twenty-four hours. So Big Brother is becoming there Big Western War Criminal. And the West wonders then where these middle-easterners and far-easterners find their terrorist ideas. In our security laboratories, and no where else. But the series has another interest. It shows the inside picture of that kind of security experimentation and we find out that there are at least four or five levels and that most people have one foot in more than one level and often in three levels. The last scene is typical. Michael, the NGO worker who was the ultimate guinea pig of the tag is executed on the ship that is leaving Britain by the man who helped all along Michael, his Brother Stephen and his wife Yasim, and we discover that he who appeared to be a freelance fighter to avenge his own daughter is in fact a multiple agent working for the secret and totally undercover circle of the security services of the government. That gives to the series an interesting twinge. Note that tag was also used against illegal immigrant who were infected in a way or another and died within days. Actually the doctor of this experiment manages to find a cure but he is eliminated in due time and all evidence destroyed. The experiment had been a full success. Let's keep that in reserve. The final element is the sentimental level. Michael is officially killed and buried and Stephen comes back from China for the funeral. Yasim, Michael's wife is then ripped between the dead husband and his brother, and the brother is divided between his brother's wife and his brother's widow. One of the side effects of that false death and burial is that Stephen is brought back to England and then will no longer be able to leave, hence will be forced to work for the government. So even the wife torn between two brothers is not really dramatic, certainly not tragic. It is one more level of political plotting. But altogether the series is interesting and even fascinating, British in one word in that genre of political science fiction.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID