Bodyguard

The story takes wild, violent leaps amid myriad conspiracies, leading to a crazy, nail-biting climax that is both preposterous and wholly satisfying. Some binges feel like a slog. Bodyguard is more of a race, well worth the run. [15-28 Oct 2018, p.9]

This show excels at both the daring, gasp-inducing twist and the methodical construction of slower-burning thrills. The finale, for instance, features a lengthy sequence of almost physically painful tension, a bravura bit of television that could only exist on a show in which we’ve been primed to understand that truly anything can happen.

Bodyguard remains a gripping and thoroughly entertaining adventure that’s emotionally deft, but that clumsy ending dims its overall excellence.

It boasts terrific performances, unpredictable twists, and a stack of fanfic-favorite tropes (if the series’ title has you thinking of Whitney Houston, you’re frankly on the right track) executed with polish and flair. Though the thread of tension crackling at the show’s center doesn’t quite make it all the way through to the end, the journey is still enough of a roller coaster to make it well worth the ride.

Bodyguard succeeds almost immediately at setting the hook and then races for six episodes and six-plus hours of pulse-pounding action and brain-bending twists, which, when it's all said and done, is more than enough to justify watching.

The plot is determined to make us change our minds about who could be a mole every ten minutes. Muslim characters are pigeonholed as potential terrorists, although that’s a trope that Bodyguard tries to subvert with a modest amount of success. And yet, even on those occasions when it lands exactly where you think it’s headed, it still threads a compelling enough needle to keep its audience hooked.

There are several things that work really well in the series’ final episode, and could leave the door open for another season, and other revelations that feel like a bit of a letdown. But ultimately, Bodyguard is an exhilarating ride that truly showcases Madden as a major talent.

Some elements of the series struck me as odd, including what seems an endorsement of the surveillance state, and certain climactic revelations had me talking to the screen. But the action is well mounted and the tension tightly wound; it uncoils, when it does, with a satisfying snap.

American viewers may not grasp all the subtleties of British government bureaucracy, but the cast of well-drawn characters--Anjli Mohindra is a standout as Nadia, the would-be suicide bomber--make Bodyguard compulsively watchable.

Like Homeland, Bodyguard expands its horizons to cast a big, knotty, conspiracy-theorist net over the police forces, the intelligence community, and the upper echelons of the British government. Unfortunately, another similarity it has with Homeland is a propensity to lean on stereotype, adding to the woefully limited characterization of Muslims on mainstream television shows. ... To watch Bodyguard’s six episodes is to suspend disbelief and submit to its surprises. It helps not to expect too much more than that.