The first episode is crackling. After that?
The Day of the Jackal
The first five episodes are now streaming on Peacock TV . I've seen the first two episodes in their entirety. Subsequent episodes in the 10-episode series will debut every Thursday.
Frankly, I tapped out after the first of five ad-breaks in the third episode. A viewer has to recognize their limitations.
In the first episode, Eddie Redmayne is bemasked in old-age makeup, but we know it's him, because why else would we be watching an aged custodian reporting for his nightly cleaning job? The custodian/Eddie slips through security, starts killing innocent people when he's discovered (clumsily), and then wounds a young man intentionally, firing a bullet right by his eye to let the young man know that he -- Eddie/custodian -- could have killed him, if he wanted to.
Of course, that's also a clue to the audience that Eddie, without the expertly applied makeup, has Ulterior Motives. Soon, he's off to establish his bonafides as a superior marksman/deadly assassin. By the end of the episode, his character is also established as a family man -- cue Ursula Corbero, ready to wrap her arms around him in Spain while also brandishing a cute baby -- and also a typical freelancer, trying to collect money owed to him by a particularly rude client.
Of course, for every assassin/family man, we must have a law enforcement figure who quickly becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer, no matter the cost, and for that role, Lashana Lynch fits the bill to a 'T' -- her eyes blaze when she meets with her MI-6 bosses and insists that she has a clue that will lead them to the most likely suspect to have made the Very Special Rifle that the assassin has used to kill a Very Important European Person.
All that Ms. Lynch must do to find the Very Special Rifle maker is to lie to a relative, and to apply leverage on that person, she must withhold the fact that the woman's daughter has died -- accidentally, of course, it wasn't MI-6's fault, could have happened to anyone -- until the blasted woman reveals the location of her relative, i.e. Very Special Rifle maker. Sadly, Ms. Lynch is not very good at her job, as she keeps getting fellow armed and anonymous law enforcement personel killed by bad people, and only recovers a key piece of evidence because the Very Special Rifle maker dropped it or tossed in a field or something as he was fleeing after killing law enforcement personal on a mission with Very Bad Planning and absolutely no backups to keep him from escaping.
* s-i-g-h *
Episode Two is where things really fall apart, including parallel storylines in which both Eddie the Assassin and Ms. Lynch the MI-5 (or is it MI-6) agent must leave family members in the middle of Very Important Family Occasions, leaving behind unhappy family members, shaking their heads in disappointment.
First published in 1971, Edward Forsyth's novel was inspired by an assassination attempt upon Charles de Gaulle, France's president, in the early 1960s. The book was adapted into a quite enjoyable film directed by longtime Hollywood pro Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity), featuring Edward Fox as the mysterious, taciturn killer, staged as an effective classic suspense thriller. The novel was later loosely adapted into The Jackal (1997), starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Sidney Poitier, which I've never seen.
Like I wrote above, Episode One is crackling. After that, Episode Two feels like a Netflix melodrama, where family member begin to suspect Something Is Up, and the show lost its energy, feeling entirely predictable. This is one of the challenges when creators decide to stretch a premise into a series, especially one with 10 episodes. Maybe they should have stuck with the more usual six-episode run for a British show. As it is, you can feel the desire to balance both sides of the law and deepen the characterizations in order to attract the caliber of actors who are present here, doing their best.
Perhaps it picks up again after the ad breaks. Eddie Redmayne sure looks good behind a rifle; Lashana Lynch sure looks good knocking down doors. And the many European locations also look good. Remember that the series is on Peacock, not Netflix, if you're inclined. I can recommend Episode One.