Threat Matrix

This article first appeared in the Age on May 29, 2004

Threat Matrix (Monday, Channel 7, 9.30pm) is bought to you by the same producers who bought you the Axis of Evil and the Coalition of the Willing. Why? Because - repeat after me - those who take America's side are good and those against America are evil. It is not from the producers who bought you torture pics from Abu Ghraib prison. Why? Because - repeat after me - Americans would never do that kind of thing. Think I'm being reactionary and simplistic in a chardonnay-latte-swilling-Leftie kind of way? Well only as reactionary and simplistic and Threat Matrix is in a let's-imprison-everyone-who's -not-American-Rightie kind of way.

Threat Matrix is a new drama about an elite task force created to respond to the Threat Matrix report, a document that is presented to the President every morning, identifying the current greatest terror threats. The team's mission is to keep the United States safe from international and domestic threats. In the first episode the terrorist looks like an American but is actually an Indonesian who has had plastic surgery and skin bleaching. Subtext: Americans don't blow things up. In the second episode it seems, at first, that the bad guy is a former solider turned drug trafficker. Subtext: American soldiers don't blow the wrong things up.

Special Agent Frankie Ellroy-Kilmer (Kelly Rutherford) is a highly trained interrogation expert and 'profiler' whose skills allow her to crack the most hardened enemies. She races over to Jakarta which, instead of looking like the high rise modern city it is, looks like a Chinese town circa 1930 and is peopled with people that in no way resemble Indonesians people. She is tortured which is particularly stressful for the leader of this unit Special Agent John Kilmer (James Denton) because Frankie is his ex-wife.

The only thing Threat Matrix has going for it is good effects and competent acting - but that is standard issue for thrillers these days. Yes, I know Channel 7, 24 (Monday, 10.30pm) has been doing it tough but you've moved it to a later time slot just as it is finally getting its act together thanks to the virus unleashed (though I concede the comeback may be too late for viewers to give it a chance). And, while we are on the subject, why couldn't you hang in there with Boomtown (11.30pm,Tuesday, Channel 7) rather than putting it to bed so late? Clearly I am in the minority because the shows I like are being screened later and later. Earlier in the evening I watch DVDs of my current obsession, The West Wing and am half way through the second season. Yes, I know that season was screened on television but it was on late - at 10.30 pm. Particularly late if you take into account the dense scripts and plots. It is only now that I am watching while awake that I recognise what spectacular drama that show really is. Let me put it this way: some weeks it seems that the best TV isn't on TV any more.

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