Several of the biggest American filmmakers are shifting their attention to the small screen. David Fincher won an Emmy for House of Cards, Steven Soderbergh has the medical drama The Knick coming soon for Cinemax and even M. Night Shyamalan is channeling his inner David Lynch for the upcoming TV thriller Wayward Pines. But when a director as stellar and visually kinetic as Danny Boyle attaches himself to a small screen project, you sit up and take notice.
For those who don’t know, Boyle is directing the seven-episode first season of Babylon, a wicked satire that will air in the U.K. on February 9. The show’s first trailer released today and it looks fast and furious. Its dry, dark sense of humour, shocking bursts of violence and documentary-style realism already indicates that Boyle’s specialties as a filmmaker are out in full force.
The comedy-drama from BAFTA-winning writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong pokes fun at the London police force, although it appears to be a more scathing indictment of law enforcement than, say, a broader American cop comedy like Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Brit Marling stars as Liz Garvey, an American PR expert hired to quell the tense relationship between the London police and the press, while James Nesbitt plays one of the chief constables. (I do find a bit of irony in the fact that the actress playing the lone American on a U.K. show is named Brit.)
Check out the trailer for Babylon below, which looks like a mix between a police procedural and Armando Iannucci’s satire The Thick of It, and let us know what you think in the comments section.
