Take Thrilling Comfort In 'Bodyguard,' Where The Malfeasance Is Just Fiction

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. When the BBC show "Bodyguard" premiered in the U.K. last August, it instantly became one of the biggest hits of the decade. The series, which drops on Netflix on Wednesday, tells the story of a war-traumatized police bodyguard who is assigned to look after an ambitious woman politician who may be a terrorist target. Our critic-at-large, John Powers, says it's recklessly entertaining.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Near the end of John le Carre's great spy novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" one of the agents notices that his car's passenger door is unlocked. He instantly begins wondering how that happened. Survival, he thinks, is an infinite capacity for suspicion. That capacity gets put to the test in "Bodyguard," a new BBC series created by Jed Mercurio, who's known for his compelling shows about the dark side of public institutions. Unfolding over six episodes, "Bodyguard" is decidedly not a remake of that old Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston movie, and you will wait in vain to hear someone belt out, (singing) and I will always love you. This is a high-powered, state-of-the-art thriller about terrorism, political chicanery and the perils of acting in good faith.

The series stars Richard Madden, the handsome Scottish actor best-known as Robb Stark on "Game Of Thrones." He's actually far better here playing Sgt. David Budd, an Afghanistan war vet with PTSD and a broken marriage who now works for the London Police as a bodyguard for visiting dignitaries. When we first meet this tightly wound loner, he's just learned a terrorist plans to bomb the train he's riding, a tense 20-minute opening that announces the show's intention to keep us permanently on the edge of our seats. Sgt.

Budd handles the situation so deftly that his boss gives him what looks like a plum assignment. He's sent to protect Julia Montague, played by Keeley Hawes, the home secretary in the conservative government, who, beneath her good looks, possesses a spine of the purest Thatcherite steel. The ruthless Julia intends to supplant her party's prime minister by whipping up fear of Islamic terrorism. It's an approach that her bodyguard despises. Here, the two talk after she's done a TV interview pushing national security and defending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BODYGUARD")

RICHARD MADDEN: (As David Budd) May I ask, ma'am - that interview on telly - did you mean what you said?

KEELEY HAWES: (As Julia Montague) I'm sorry?

MADDEN: (As David Budd) About the Middle East.

HAWES: (As Julia Montague) See, I don't only say what the people want to hear. I'm about doing the right thing and making the hard choices. The thing is, David/Dave, I don't need you to vote for me, only to protect me.

MADDEN: (As David Budd) Rest assured, ma'am, I'll do what's required.

POWERS: What's required proves extremely tricky because someone really is trying to kill Julia Montague. But who could it be? Islamic militants? Renegade elements of the security apparatus? Her Conservative Party enemies? Before he's even settled into the job, Sgt. Budd is dodging assassins' bullets, being ordered to spy on the woman he's protecting and discovering that he finds the home secretary kind of, well, hot.

When "Bodyguard" aired in the U.K. a couple of months ago, it became a national obsession. Not only does the show offer more shocking twists than a tank full of electric eels, but its hero is, in many ways, the male version of "Homeland's" charismatic Carrie Mathison, a devoted but psychologically fraying officer who's susceptible to the allures and manipulations of those he should know better than to get entangled with. He must find his way through a minefield of unreliable characters - his ex-soldier pal who's hell-bent on vengeance, the head of the London police force's anti-terror squad, who's at war with MI5, and the Conservative Party's nasty chief whip.

While all of this makes the series gripping, it doesn't make it serious. Like "Homeland," "Scandal," "House Of Cards" and their spiritual godfather, "24," "Bodyguard" taps into big issues like terrorism and government snooping but only to keep us guessing. More concerned with being a good ride than exploring character or politics, the show is awash in a timely cynicism. The paranoid thrillers of the '60s and '70s - "Seven Days In May" or "Three Days Of The Condor" or "All The President's Men" - were made for an audience that assumed a stable, law-abiding political system. Such thrillers took their sting from the cautionary suggestion that we didn't know what's really going on, that the system was being threatened by conspirators - rogue generals, rogue spies, even rogue presidents.

These days in both Britain and America, countless millions on both left and right believe that the state itself has gone rogue. Lawless conspiracy has come to seem so normal that '70s paranoia now seems almost innocent. Without the ballast of a stable world to keep the action anchored, anything becomes possible on today's shows - Kevin Spacey shoving a reporter in front of a train in "House Of Cards" a sleeper-cell Marine murdering the vice president in his own office in "Homeland."

And so it is with "Bodyguard," a finely tuned series whose delirious improbabilities reveal themselves like clockwork. The show doesn't seek to alert us to the dangers of terrorism and government malfeasance. By now, we've had all the warnings we need. Instead, "Bodyguard" reduces the things that scare us to shamelessly white-knuckled entertainment with a neat resolution. Don't worry, it suggests, it's just another thriller.

GROSS: John Powers writes about film and TV for Vogue and vogue.com. He reviewed the BBC series "Bodyguard," which drops on Netflix Wednesday. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about voting rights and voting restrictions. My guest will be journalist Ari Berman, author of "Give Us The Ballot." He says 24 states have implemented new restrictions disproportionately affecting minorities, ranging from requiring voter IDs to closing polling places. He'll also tell us about the seven states where efforts are being made to expand voting rights. I hope you'll join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF AARON GOLDBERG'S "YOYO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.