The Honourable Woman

This series started with fanfares, and over its eight week run has gathered an aura of awed respect. I was really disappointed. It certainly had ambition – complicated family story, set against the backdrop of Israel/Occupied Territories. It had that annoying air of omniscience – “I know what’s going on, but you won’t be bright enough to suss it yet” which is meant to keep you gripped in your seats. But it kept going for the classy moment, the filmic thrill, at the cost of consistency and plausibility. there were little hiccups all the way through, increasingly often as it went on, and then, rewatching episodes, the gaps and doubts increase by the minute. At the heart of it is the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhall, going through endless costume changes and rigorous conditions to portray a woman is not honourable at all. She’s meant to be naive and well-intentioned, but she’s also stupid, selfish and short-sighted – a bit like Tony Blair. That the UK government would move heaven and earth to rescue this idiot from the predicament in which (for the second time) she has placed herself is beyond belief.