Babylon
- TV comedy drama
- Channel 4
- 2014
- 7 episodes (1 series)
Police-based comedy drama focuses on the over-stretched Metropolitan Police Force. James Nesbitt stars as Chief Constable Richard Miller. Stars James Nesbitt, Brit Marling, Paterson Joseph, Jonny Sweet, Bertie Carvel and more.
Press clippings Page 7
Radio Times review
Shambles, swearing and spin: if you've missed The Thick of It, you're in luck. Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong have applied the high-farce formula to the Metropolitan Police for this scabrous comedy drama directed by Danny Boyle.
Their Met, led by James Nesbitt as Commissioner, is obsessed with public image: top brass fret so much about media coverage that any actual policing comes a distant second. This gets ugly (and funny) in tonight's pilot, when a series of shootings breaks out across London on the day a new American PR chief (Brit Marling) arrives in the job. The script is sharp and cruel, though occasionally the delivery feels a little too delivered: throwaway realism is what's needed here. Roll on a full series.
David Butcher, Radio Times, 9th February 2014Babylon: a hilarious, unsettling drama
Like Four Lions, there are many tones and registers packed in.
Ben Dowell, Radio Times, 9th February 2014Babylon - TV review
For the 90 minutes that Danny Boyle's comedy-drama pilot was on I laughed - and despaired too.
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian, 9th February 2014Babylon was bewildering but often brilliant
They didn't hit all the targets and there were times when you wondered exactly where Babylon was headed but it did manage to pack in some very funny moments.
Keith Watson, Metro, 9th February 2014TV review: Danny Boyle tackles topic of the moment
Babylon's best scene was its opening one, in which several tooled-up, testosterone-addled members of the show's deftly cast ensemble were caught on camera phone bursting into a man's home and tasering his testicles.
Ellen E Jones, The Independent, 9th February 2014Babylon, episode 1, Channel 4, review
While it had many strengths, Babylon was not quite as great as the sum of its parts and the problem lay in Danny Boyle's direction. He may be Britain's most-lauded director but his filter of coolness was at odds with the very British, rather dyspeptic dialogue of Sam Bain and Jessie Armstrong.
Ben Lawrence, The Telegraph, 9th February 2014Danny Boyle's striking direction saves imbalanced drama
I still can't really make my mind up whether I enjoyed it or not.
Unreality TV, 9th February 2014Interview: Paterson Joseph on Babylon
Joseph will star in Channel 4's big winter tent-pole drama Babylon as Deputy Commissioner Charles Inglis.
Bim Adewunmi, The Independent, 8th February 2014Babylon: Danny Boyle's return to TV
Danny Boyle has collaborated with Peep Show writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain on Babylon, an ambitious new cop show. Craig McLean went on location.
Craig McLean, The Telegraph, 7th February 2014Babylon preview
I think it's a rather smart move from Channel 4 to choose to air a 90-minute feature length episode before launching the series.
Elliot Gonzalez, I Talk Telly, 7th February 2014