Treason Season 1 Review
If you were looking forward to a boring, clever, clever spy caper, there's none of that here. Instead, you get the "Betrayal" that this series should be accused of. The fan's words, however, are more or less accurate in their description.
Series Location
The series is set entirely in London and takes place over five days. Cox plays Adam Lawrence, who is pushed to become head of MI6 when his former boss Martin Angelis (Hinds) is poisoned. Adam renews old acquaintances with former SVR spy Kara (Kurylenko), who has come to "collect" his dues.
A man gets caught up in an even bigger political conspiracy to disrupt the country's political landscape and must protect his family against all odds. With not one but three intelligence agencies involved, the stories don't reflect their explosive rapprochement.
A flawed foundation will shake even the strongest buildings, no matter how elegant and well-built they are. Here it is. Charman, who also wrote the series, gets the most fundamental aspect of the show wrong: plotting. Everything that happens after the script is written cannot be blamed on causality. The poor writing exposes the lack of emotional appeals and depth in what Charman wants to explore through the story. Not only that, the lack of credibility is even more appalling. Betrayal makes it seem unreal even to the average viewer when he goes from point A to point B.
This basic requirement is the least you can expect from these kinds of shows. Why else would you watch them? Even Jack Ryan, a recent Internet troll favorite, boasts an impressive spy story with a few WTF moments. With betrayal, the number of these moments increases dramatically.
Lack Of Writing
The lack of quality writing comes completely out of the blue and leaves you disappointed with the end result. Parallel to the entire plot, Charman goes to carve out an engaging family drama in the style of espionage, i.e. betrayals, confessions and secrets.
The dynamics shared by the family largely dictate the emotional part of the story. There should be an obvious tension in the house, but for some reason it doesn't show up properly before episode 4. Even when it does, Betrayal greatly eases the effort. As a viewer, you only feel for Adam, who has zero emotional support from his wife or children; not even Callum, who is initially shown to be a smart guy interested in this spy business.
It's really irritating to see some of the decisions made by the creative team. Like fraternizing with the CIA to insult her husband, or skipping school when you know the enemy's eyes are on you. Is emotional pressure enough of a reason for them to make stupid mistakes like this? The only explanation that works is to disrupt the mythic air of genius and superiority generally created around characters like Adam. In order for these decisions to make sense, Adam must be a coward, a soft person, unfit for his job and protecting his family.
The fact that he was able to reach the top only because of Black lends credence to this idea. But Betrayal does not represent him in this respect. It's nice to think of the show and the characters in such a different way. This choice can even be considered as a subversion of the genre in a certain sense. But the disparity between reality and what should be breaks any momentum from the show.
In the end, Betrayal leaves you with a hollow story full of plot holes that make for an unpleasant ride. Betrayal had all the makings of a superior spy series on paper. But none of these promises are replicated in the lackluster execution and shoddy story, giving this a serious "stomach" rating from us!
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