This article is taken from the October 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
There are espionage operations and there are black espionage operations, or black-ops for short. Both are usually perilous, but black ops have an extra layer of danger. They are off-the-books — officially, they never happened. If the operatives get caught or in trouble, their governments will not come to the rescue. But for some, such peril only adds to the appeal, sharpening the senses, amplifying the danger and triggering that addictive adrenaline rush.
Terminal List: Dark Wolf is a prequel to Terminal List, and both series are available on Amazon Prime. The former has just premiered, the latter was first shown in 2022. I have not watched Terminal List yet, but the prequel, which also works as a stand-alone, is addictive enough to ensure that I will.
Both are inspired by a series of thrillers by Jack Carr, a former US Navy Seal. Terminal List: Dark Wolf opens in Iraq several years ago. Ben Edwards, a Navy Seal officer, and his team are ordered to exchange Hamoud al-Jabouri, an ISIS leader, for 18 hostages on a bridge. Naturally, it all goes wrong. ISIS has wired both the hostages and the bridge with explosives which are duly detonated. Al-Jabouri escapes — until Edwards tracks him down and (minor spoiler alert) rams a pistol into his mouth and fires. Unfortunately for Edwards, Al-Jabouri was a highly-placed CIA asset. His death causes fury. Edwards is stripped of his rank and discharged and walks straight into the welcoming arms of a highly secret joint CIA-Mossad black operation in Budapest.
The Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch returns as Edwards whilst Tom Hopper stars as Raife Hastings, Edwards’s closest friend. Rona-Lee Shimon, the Israeli actress best known for playing Nurit in Fauda, crackles with energy as Mossad agent Eliza. The new team’s target is a rogue Hungarian professor of nuclear physics who is readily helping the Iranians enrich their uranium.
Admittedly, this unlikely scenario demands some suspension of disbelief; indeed, the whole series is somewhat fantastical. But put your scepticism aside and buckle up for an exciting ride.
The big-picture action sequences are spectacular and the minutiae of complicated intelligence operations seem authentic and well-observed. There is plenty of high-octane tension as the American–Israeli team goes to work, facing down the bad-guys. But it’s not just fights and explosions.
As a veteran resident of Budapest, I especially enjoyed the scenes and episodes set in the Hungarian capital. In recent years, as an ever-popular film and television location Budapest has stood in for Buenos Aires, Moscow, Munich, Vienna and Berlin.
Thus it’s gratifying to see the city finally play itself in all its panoramic glory — from the glittering Danube and its sweeping bridges to the shadowy alleys and dark courtyards far from the tourist trail.
All this plus a great soundtrack too: like SAS Rogue Heroes, Dark Wolf makes excellent use of rock music to frame and highlight the action. Expect Metallica, Jimi Hendrix and, of course, AC/DC.
I took a gamble recommending Hostage as a summer choice before I had seen it, but my punt paid off handsomely. The five-part Netflix series is a rollercoaster ride, switching between 10 Downing Street and the steamy jungles of French Guiana. Suranne Jones gives an energetic performance as British prime minister Abigail Dalton whilst Julie Delpy dispenses bucket-loads of Gallic grandeur and disdain as French president Vivienne Toussaint.
Dalton’s husband Alex, a medic on assignment, is kidnapped in French Guiana with his colleagues by masked baddies. They have one demand: Dalton must resign. She does not, and the body count soon rises.
The plot careens around like a pinball, bouncing in every direction. There are lashings of blackmail, double-dealing, betrayal, cabinet intrigues and a love affair eye-opening even by French standards. Dalton and Toussaint are perfectly matched as rivals and on-off frenemies.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the British prime minister is not quite the goody-two-shows she claims to be. The storyline loops back to her time as a junior Foreign Office minister and a no-win decision she took that left quite a lot of blood on her hands.
All that and an out-of-control British military that is planning a coup, to sideline the pesky civilian politicians that keep cutting the defence budget.
Hats off to the directors Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil for this sometimes preposterous but always entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking summer series. And quelle pleasure to see a political drama led by strong, conflicted women characters.
Untamed is a slower-paced treat. The six-episode Netflix series unfolds in Yosemite National Park, one of America’s most beautiful settings, and the Californian scenery, even on a television screen, is stunning.
Eric Bana delivers a low-key performance as Kyle Turner, an investigative officer in the National Parks Service, but his quiet determination soon draws the viewer in. Turner is investigating a brutal murder, of a young woman who plummets to her death into a canyon. Did she jump or was she pushed? Or was her death something in between?
The story unfolds at a steady pace, digging beneath the beauty of the soaring mountains and verdant valleys to reveal a darker heart. Turner too is haunted by a catastrophic parenting error that upended his life forever. Buttressed by a strong supporting cast, Untamed is a decidedly old-fashioned murder mystery.
