The Capture review: Far-fetched tech, shocking twists, lovely suits - this paranoid thriller still captures the attention
The third series of tech-thriller The Capture has to work very hard to keep up with the relentless pace of 'innovation' coming from the tech bros of Silicon Valley.
Every day, it seems, we're confronted by another statement from some libertarian billionaire proclaiming that 'intelligence will become a commodity' we have to pay for, or that AI will 'disrupt democracy', taking away economic power from 'humanities-trained' left-leaning voters.
On a more prosaic level, such is the amount of AI 'slop' we see on social media – from a benignly-smiling Jesus blessing Donald Trump to fake videos of bear attacks – it's no surprise that, as a hard-bitten hack tells The Capture's heroine, Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger) “questioning everything we see has become a national habit”.
But what do we do when we can't count the fingers of people in pictures, or check out the garbled writing in the background?
Well, according to The Capture, we invent a totally new kind of CCTV camera.
This one has two lenses; one which transmits in real time to Commander Carey's hi-tech enormo-screens at police HQ, the other recording on an internal hard drive which can't be hacked.
According to Carey, “any discrepancy between the two signals is flagged”, and the lanyard-toting nerds can work it all out from there.
If that all sounds a bit vague and wispily implausible, The Capture knows it doesn't matter.
As long as it's said with enough conviction and the music throbs menacingly underneath the dialogue, we can simply swallow it and move on.
And we do, to be honest. The Capture is as much about paranoia, shadowy conspiracies and people whispering urgently into walkie-talkies as any resemblance to reality.
So much has moved on since the first series, which saw a traumatised soldier used as patsy in a global game of spying.
That only involved a little bit of light video manipulation – called 'correction' in the lingo of The Capture – and not much more.
The second series moved on to involve “the dark web, data analytics” and real-time fakery which apparently could change a government minister's words in a Newsnight interview on demand and instantaneously.
But now we get the new, hi-tech, unhackable 'Carey Cams' being hacked, assassinations in front of the assembled press and a former top cop being allowed into a live crime scene because he threatens an armed officer with revealing “what happened in Bournemouth”.
Intriguing, but increasingly untethered from the real world.
But, with armed policeman running through corridors shouting, Carey's lovely line power-dressing and the pulsating soundtrack all serve to push you through the implausibilities, even up to the massive, shocking twist at the end of episode one, which in all probability should have you spitting out your Sunday evening glass of merlot all over your sofa and exclaiming 'oh come on!' at the top of your voice.
Because there's an undeniable frisson behind the 'ripped-from-the-headlines' nature of The Capture, especially as we're all aware of the dominance of tech in our lives, and we're all aware of the oligarchs, and the gerontocracies and the baseball-cap wearing warmongers around the world who want us to mistrust the evidence of our own eyes.
And, more the point, the writing contains some lovely lines. Carey is passed over for promotion as permanent head of the counter-terror unit, but the top brass still want her to front the launch of the new cameras.
“So you want me to be the face of the department, but not the head?” she asks.
It's all good fun, and while it does stretch credulity, it does it with such chutzpah and zeal that you just hold on and enjoy the ride.