Recensie SkyShowtime-series ‘The Undeclared War’
This rather complicated series on cyber warfare doesn’t really bring anything new.
the undeclared war revolves around a cyber war as a prelude to a real war. Since a year of war in Europe is no longer an unthinkable situation, this series deals with a current and serious topic, but unfortunately the content and the proposed future scenarios are not remarkable enough to make the viewer think. We already knew that fake news and deepfakes can cause chaos and trouble.
The hacker world that is portrayed in the series is sometimes difficult for laymen to follow due to all the jargon. The creators try their best to facilitate this by using your imagination rather than just displaying a screen with numbers, but this only partially helps. It mainly contributes to the originality of the series.
The likeable and intriguing protagonist Saara is an introvert, excellently played by the young Hannah Khalique-Brown, an actress who can convey a lot using just her eyes. With her quiet play, she offers a nice addition to the exciting tone of the series. The delicate backstory blends nicely with the hectic pace of the cyber attack.
The tension is immediately palpable, thanks to a good soundtrack and single-shot camerawork, among other things. But after the first few episodes, the tension thins out a bit, especially as the story gets more and more complicated. To make matters worse, the last two episodes of SkyShowime have been swapped which will make the viewing experience completely chaotic for uninitiated viewers.
the undeclared war argues that fake news weakens a society to such an extent that a country becomes susceptible to war. That may be true, but it’s not a surprising or shocking idea. The details in the series about this are not original enough to make the viewer think. It is certainly an intriguing idea that a large amount of fake news can illuminate an entire country in the same way that a large amount of lies can utterly confuse one person. But ultimately quite general, so it doesn’t really appeal to the imagination.
Given the time in which the story takes place, several years in the future, and the references to the current situations surrounding the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine, it’s pretty clear that the creators have something to say about the escalation of this problem. . It’s a shame this doesn’t sound very strong. At the moment, the series mainly offers useful advice for Vladimir Putin, although it is hard to imagine that he, too, is an ordinary person and watches streaming services. Now that is an amazing concept.
the undeclared war can be seen in SkyShowtime.