The Last Enemy (TV series)
| The Last Enemy | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama Thriller Science fiction Adventure Mystery |
| Written by | Peter Berry |
| Directed by | Iain B. MacDonald |
| Starring | Benedict Cumberbatch Anamaria Marinca Max Beesley Robert Carlyle Eva Birthistle Geraldine James Tom Fisher James Lance San Shella David Harewood Christopher Fulford Paul Higgins Nick Sidi |
| Composer | Magnus Fiennes |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 5 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Patrick Irwin Justin Thomson-Glover Adrian Bate |
| Producers | Gub Neal, Rebecca Eaton (for WGBH) |
| Production locations | London, UK; Bucharest, Romania |
| Camera setup | John Hembrough |
| Running time | 85 minutes (Episode 1); 60 minutes (Episodes 2–5) |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC One |
| Release | 17 February – 16 March 2008 |
The Last Enemy is a BBC television series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and featuring Robert Carlyle and Max Beesley. It first aired on 17 February 2008.
Plot
Set in a near-future United Kingdom beset by terrorism and illegal immigration, it features the introduction of "TIA" (Total Information Awareness), 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 a rogue batch of vaccine that seems to be causing a deadly virus, as well as the moral, social and privacy concerns of such a system in a post-7/7 world. The story is told through the eyes of a mathematical genius, Stephen Ezard, who is portrayed as a recluse and showing some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The final episode then has a plot twist in which this apparent virus is shown to be in fact an ethnicity-specific side effect of an experiment in producing an internal, injected and unfakeable bio-tag, a side-effect, which affects Arabs, but not Caucasians, and so (to avoid international scandal) has had to be shut down.
Viewing figures
| Episode number | Season | Original airing | Total viewers | Audience share (average) | Season viewer average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Season 1 | 17 February 2008 | 4.2m[1] | 18% | 2.7m |
| 2 | Season 1 | 24 February 2008 | 2.5m[2] | 10% | |
| 3 | Season 1 | 2 March 2008 | 2.3m[3] | 9.4% | |
| 4 | Season 1 | 9 March 2008 | 2.5m[4] | 10% | |
| 5 | Season 1 | 16 March 2008 | 2m[5] | 8% |
Distribution
- The Last Enemy aired in the United States on PBS stations on Masterpiece Contemporary.
- In Australia, The Last Enemy TV series commenced airing on free-to-air-TV on ABC1 (the national public television channel) from 8:30pm on 19 July 2009[6] and concluded on 16 August 2009.[7]
- The Last Enemy aired on TVO in Ontario, Canada from 9:00 pm on 1 April 2009 to 29 April 2009
- "The Last Enemy" will air weekly in Denmark on DR1 from 10:45 pm on 26 January 2012
References
- ^ Holmwood, Leigh (18 February 2008). "TV ratings - February 18: Kingdom reigns over The Last Enemy". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Holmwood, Leigh (25 February 2008). "TV ratings - February 24: To see you nice, say Brucie's 6.5 million". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Esposito, Maria (3 March 2008). "TV ratings - March 2: Lewis beats BBC enemy". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Holmwood, Leigh (10 March 2008). "TV ratings - March 9: ITV1 hits 9.6m Sunday peak". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Holmwood, Leigh (17 March 2008). "TV ratings - March 16: Dancing on Ice final wins for ITV". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "ABC1 TV Guide Program Information". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
- ^ "ABC1 TV Guide Program Information". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.