The Last Enemy is a BBC TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and featuring Robert Carlyle and Max Beesley which first aired on 17 February 2008.
Set in a near-future United Kingdom beset by terrorism and illegal immigration, it features the introduction of “TIA”, a centralised database that can be used to track and monitor anybody effectively by putting all available government information in one place. The story deals with a political cover-up centred around the emergence of a deadly virus, as well as the moral, social and privacy concerns (and even merits) of such a system in a post-9/11 world. The story is told through the eyes of a mathematical genius who is portrayed as a recluse and showing some signs of OCD.
I’ve always been a fan of espionage, ever since I read the Robert Ludlum novels at a tender young age of 10. This is one of the reasons why I’ve stopped reading them, since they simply followed a tried and tested formula. It got repetitive after 10 novels or so. I got really interested in Tom Clancy novels after that.
The Last Enemy is really interesting. In the future, the UK has become a Big Brother like society. It’s not really as extreme as that epithet leads you to believe. It’s the beginning of the end of free will to protect the society from imagined or real terrorism. It draws a disturbing parallel with what is happening in the US right now. That’s not to say that this isn’t happening in Europe as well.
I enjoyed the show. It’s about TIA. What’s TIA? Total Information Awareness. It’s a gigantic DB that links all of the other DB that have been compiled in the UK into one real time accessible system. Meaning that you can track anyone at anytime thanks to satellite coverage and CCTV cameras, as well as tracking their purchases and habits through their spending.
In this episode, Russell starts working with Yazim and Stephen to help find out what happened in Afghanistan and the vaccine. Stephen needs to get back into TIA in order to get more information about the vaccine. It leads them to a pharmaceutical company.
There are a lot of conspiracies, the main one involves the government covering up a nascent plague in the Middle East since they believe that they caused it in some fashion through some vaccines. I really like this series. It’s compelling, disturbing and original. I recommend it.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
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Russell is told by his associate that Ezard and Yazim will die if he doesn’t interfere. Russell is pissed and heads back in the van to get them. Michael is going through Stephen’s computer and finds encrypted files. Ezard and Yazim head back to the flat. People are watching them. A man is about to shoot them.
Russell arrives in the van. The man is running down the stairs. They follow them. Michael sees Eleanor on the TV. Russell tells them about RFIDs, no thicker than a strand of hair an inch long. Ezard thinks about his shoes when they were shined at the hotel. They are chased by assassins. The men have lost Ezard and Yazim again. They have a disagreement and the soldier shoots the driver because he wants to split.
Michael leaves his flat. Russell arrives at his HQ. Yazim confronts him about his familial link with Nadir. He isn’t her father. He’s her long lost estranged step-father.
The men who have Nadir’s body burn her in an incinerator. Michael visits Nadir’s flat. He doesn’t spot the CCTV camera inside it watching him just like it was watching Russell.
Nye meets with Turney. She asks him about meeting Gibbon.
Russell sets some ground rules. He wants Stephen to look into the virus on TIA. He gives Stephen a bug sweeper that he designed.
Nye and Turney meet with Gibbon. Gibbon wants to pull Ezard in, but Geraldine convinces him to let him ferret out the information that they need. Nye gets a phone call about the illegal picked up at the docks. He says that it’s not good.
Ezard is about to leave for the TIA.
Michael pays a visit to some old friend. He asks about Yazim, Nadir and his brother. He wants him to break into a copy of his brother’s notebook. Michael says that he really doesn’t know his brother. He has no idea who he is. He needs fake papers to break into a drug company to find out why they would want him dead. Ezard comes home and finds that his notebook has been moved. Ezard finds some oranges that have been partially eaten. He knows that someone was in the flat. The shower has been used.
Before he can make anything of it, the doorbell rings. It’s Eleanor. She’s angry about something. She says that the part of the TIA that he was involved with was only the first phase. There was something big coming afterwards. Her portfolio has been handed over to someone else. Ezard scans her and finds bugs on her.
Nye turns up at the hospital where the sick illegal is located.
Ezard tells Eleanor that she is bugged. She asks him if he wants to search him. She strips. Ezard sees that she is still transmitting. She is naked. It’s funny that Ezard didn’t even try to do something sexual with Eleanor. He tells her that there might be a glitch in TIA. He wants to get into the system without anyone knowing and he needs ministerial access.
Another illegal is getting sick. Michael is driving them around. Michael gets his fake papers. He poses as Anthony Cohen, an Irish Jew.
Ezard goes into TIA.
Russell’s system is down. It starts up. It shows Patrick Nye’s file. He’s with British Intelligence. Yazim is furious that he didn’t tell Ezard who was involved. Nye crosses paths with Ezard. Russell tells Yazim about Nye. The company that manufactured the Hep B vaccine is Kellerman Deloit. That’s a strange name for a pharmaceutical company. The Brits pronounce it delight, that’s why it sounded strange.
At TIA, Ezard finds Caroline Scott who works for Kellerman Deloit. At the same time, Michael heads into Kellerman Deloit. Without knowing, both brothers are working on the same problem.
Ezard strips in his office to remove his bugged clothes and leaves. He’s done some recon on Scott. Ezard is waiting for her with Russell’s bagman outside the company.
Michael is asking hard questions to Susanne Ross. She says that this should have been handled better. She says that the vaccine isn’t the cause of the virus. The investigation was made secretly. She says that the illness is a virus and isn’t contagious.
Ezard spots Scott leaving. He sees his brother coming out of Kellerman-Deloit. He doesn’t understand what is going on.
Nye checks up on Ezard. He knows that he ditched his trackers. He phones Turney. Ezard approaches Scott at a grocery store. He wants to ask her some questions about the production process of the vaccine. She doesn’t want anything to do with him. He creeps her out with the information he knows about her. He buys her some groceries and she listens her out. She tells him that the line broke down an year or a year and a half ago. It stopped production for three weeks.
Turney was waiting for Brooke. She tells her that the PM wants to see her later tonight.
Ezard is onto something. He finds four rental trucks that came to the factory.
Gibbon is at the PM’s office. Is he the PM? He wants to talk about Ezard. The people visiting the Kellerman-Deloit line were micro-biologist. All four of them attended a conference held by Laurence Cooper.
Michael finds out that his brother was tracking Yazim.
Gibbon and Turney talk with Brooke. They want to deal with Ezard. Gibbon is most definitely not the PM since Turney is sitting down and Gibbon is standing in a corner. It denotes that Turney is more powerful in the cabinet than Gibbon.
Ezard and Yazim make love. He tells her that he saw Michael at the Kellerman-Deloit factory. She confides that in the beginning she kept seeing him everywhere. Cooper is the man that Ezard approached about autopsying Nadir in secret. Ezard goes to meet with him once more. He is followed by the assassins. Ezard comes home and hears someone in the apartment. It’s a sick illegal. He is apprehended by some people.
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