THE VEIL

This six episode spy series centres around two women: Elisabeth Moss who plays MI6 agent Imogen Salter and Yumna Marwan as ISIS commander Adilya El Idrissi. After rescuing Idrissi from imprisonment in a refugee camp, Salter promises to reunite her with her daughter if she divulges the details of a ship laden with explosives, heading for an unknown port in the USA. By episode five the information isn’t forthcoming and people are getting mad – mostly the viewers!

Pursued across three counties by everyone from the Directorate-General for External Security (DGES) in France, to the CIA, to MI6, the two women stick together, lying and deceiving each other along the way. The stereotypes of the CIA as brash Americans who believe they have world jurisdiction and the DGES as desk jockeys only working 9am to 5pm are irritating for a show trying to be taken seriously.

Watching ‘The Veil’ is a haphazard, dragging slog, filled with irrelevant segues taking the focus off the main plot – not that the main plot is much to write home about. I’m a huge Elisabeth Moss fan thanks to ‘The Handmaids Tale’ but her over-enunciated English accent and brooding stares wore me down. I acknowledge she wasn’t given much to work with here, playing a reckless character who acts like a law unto herself, unable to be controlled by anyone. I could go on for hours more but I don’t have enough life left to live to keep thinking about this show. Billed as a thriller, I was anything but thrilled. Give it a miss.