Hey! Listen up because I have good news for creatives who have a pitch for an Adjective Animals series set in London, featuring bickering spies with British (or Irish) accents, and which is underscored by foreboding piano notes that go from E to F and then from F to D. Streaming services are absolutely clamouring for a show like that so you'll be buying an expensive car in no time. This means that we're gathering intelligence on the first season of Black Doves since it might be able to scratch an itch for you.
Christmas is soon coming down your chimney as we meet Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a wife of Tory minister Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan), mother of two and covert spy for the titular organisation that tends to work for the "highest bidder" and is managed by Reed (Sarah Lancashire). When Helen's lover Jason (Andrew Koji) and his accomplices are assassinated, her old friend and hitman Sam (Ben Whishaw) is brought back from Italy to guard her because she's seen as the next target. Helen and Sam work together to get to the bottom of Jason's murder, which has ties to her personal life and pressing geopolitical tensions that Wallace is dealing with, all the while Sam has to tie up some loose ends in his own past and present.
Written and created by Joe Barton, Black Doves wears its influences on its sleeve right from the get-go, which on one hand (or sleeve) invites viewers in quickly because it's comforting to see old tropes exploited skilfully and confidently in this very modern spy action drama. But on the other hand, across the six-episode introduction—the series has fortunately been renewed already, which is an encouraging sign considering that its platform is just as trigger-happy as many of these characters involved in espionage—it also heavily struggles with its identity.
You mainly see this when it comes to spatters of dark humour that is very hit-and-miss, again, like many of these characters are with their shot accuracy, or some of the relationships and dialogue used to unpack tensions in them, such as Sam's dealings with old associate Lenny (Kathryn Hunter) and his love affair with ex-boyfriend Michael (Omari Douglas). These dramatic beats make you want to skip forward to the next scene; you obviously won't do that because that would be diabolical. Right?
Where the show fares a bit better is the spy action as it uses clashing personalities and motivations to explore betrayal, loyalty and justice, connecting all the different threads from spycraft to politics together pretty effectively in the last two episodes. It's also done with plenty of flair, led by directors Alex Gabassi and Lisa Gunning who build a grimy yet stylish underbelly of London along with their collaborators. The series' identity crisis contains a slightly iffy relationship between the show's themes and hard violence that reminds you of those morally questionable straight-to-VOD action thrillers with stars that signed up for three days of work, but the action, fight choreography and stunts themselves (supervised by stunt coordinator Jo McLaren) are extremely impressive, and the editing (Johnny Rayner, Simon Brasse) finds lots of gems in those scenes on a regular basis.
Though you might be captivated by the style and action by the end, the biggest draw for Black Doves at first is obviously the cast so it's helpful that the show is able to mostly fly in that department, too. Knightley gets a complex character to inhabit in Helen, who herself is having an identity crisis as she's stuck between conservative normalcy and a secret second life with a lot of bodily trauma and cruelty, and perhaps a secret third life on top of it all. The actor expresses Helen's sorrow, regret, angst and wit fascinatingly throughout, in addition to enjoying some of the hand-to-hand combat. Whishaw is oftentimes charming, delivering a few wicked one-liners perfectly, but the writing lets him down a little bit whenever Sam is left with dull relationship drama that only inspires a repetitive lip quiver, sad puppy eyes and banter that doesn't land.
The rest of the ensemble (cast by casting director Robert Sterne), however, features delightful individuals that add shades and sparks whenever things start to get dour. Ella Lily Hyland and Gabrielle Creevy as rival hitmen Williams and Eleanor, respectively, are a funny and watchable duo whilst Douglas manages to elevate his quite thankless role by imbuing Michael with warmth. Buchan is an excellent scene partner for Knightley in the latter half when their characters' professional and personal lives colliding creates conflicts, and Hunter is similarly a fun playmate for Whishaw during their brief encounters.
On the whole, even if the show is still finding its own voice, this first season is an enticing piece of action-heavy, escapist TV with a strong outing by Knightley as its driving force. It's a fairly even journey as there aren't any episodes that take a dip, although the season finale threatens to meander at times, but the pilot and episode five balance things out by having a few standout scenes and sequences that either reach something deeper within the characters or offer a shock or two. There's enough resolution to the conspiracies that Helen and Sam discover, and things quiet down just in time for the holidays, but I certainly won't mind coming back for round two with these characters.
Smileys: Keira Knightley, stunt choreography
Frowneys: Originality
The home invasion scene may have been the only time that Sam called shotgun. My guy loves to drive.
3.5/5
Where to watch:
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