“There’s a leak in the CIA. We need you in Berlin. No one can know why you’re there – not the chief, not his deputy, not a soul.”
When CIA operative Valerie Edwards (Michelle Forbes) summons former CIA analyst Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage) to go undercover in Berlin to investigate the true identity of the Snowden-esque Thomas Shaw, a whistleblower leaking top secret information, the tone is set for the thrilling .
“Who am I looking at?” Daniel asks.
The response: “Everyone.”
That includes station chief Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins), deputy Robert Kirsch (Leland Orser), agent Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans), and Valerie and Daniel themselves.
If you’re a fan of espionage thrillers like Homeland and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, you’re in for a treat. Get set for clandestine meetings, betrayals, and many a twist and turn.
“I think we really throw down the gauntlet,” Armitage. “It’s a smart television show, and you really have to have your brain switched on in order to watch it and follow it.”
The storyline is all too real
The events of 'Berlin Station' ring true, with its Snowden-like figure at the centre of its premise. Source: Netflix
“It’s happening in front of us. As we sit and watch CNN today, we’re seeing cyber-hacking and national security threats, and that’s very much what our show is about,” Armitage Collider. “It’s about the steps that these professionals take, who are very ordinary patriots placed in the position of stemming the flow of national secrets, and at the same time, they are pulled in to question their own agency and government.”
The show’s accuracy also comes from its depiction of the long-held presence of the CIA in Berlin and in the context of the city’s history as a hot bed of espionage. Forbes says the string of terrorism events around the world that occurred during filming in Berlin hit home hard that this is the “new normal”.
“We went through the Brussels, Istanbul, Paris, Orlando and Baghdad bombings as we were there,” she . “Along with all this loss and sorrow, and being what felt like right in the middle of it, there was just a really deep and devastating understanding that this is normal for us now, all of these bombings.”
It’s old school spy games
Station chief Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins) on the ground negotiating the murky world of espionage. Source: SBS
Berlin Station creator Olen Steinhauer has spent his career as a novelist delving into the morally murky world of espionage and the duplicity that defines it.
“What’s fascinating to me is that, for these people, it’s their job to go out and seduce others through lies and manipulation. Knowing that, I’ve always wondered how that affects how they feel about themselves,” he . “That’s a major theme of the series – identity.”
“These guys are not superheroes; these guys are not James or Jane Bond," Orser Deadline. "They’re broken, damaged people whose personal lives are a shambles. The CIA exacts an enormous toll on the people that work for it.”
To get an understanding of that toll, Forbes met with Valerie Plame, the CIA agent famously outed by the Bush Administration in 2003.
“It really helped me to understand what it’s like for a woman to be undercover and to sacrifice so much of your personal life in order to do this job,” Forbes.
Don’t call it Homeland
'Berlin Station' creator Olen Steinhauer says his show offers a more realistic representation of espionage compared to 'Homeland'. Source: Showtime
"The one crucial difference is that, in Homeland, you're following Carrie (Claire Danes). She's the fulcrum of everything – it's her drive that gets things done. But that's not how intelligence works," he . "How did they find Bin Laden? It was not one person who was driven to extremes. This show is supposed to show how normal people with an abnormal job have to work tougher. They are not superheroes. This is an ensemble [show] because intelligence is an ensemble."
A cast to die for
The very familiar cast of 'Berlin Station' in former roles. Source: MGM-New Line Cinema/HBO/Universal
Forbes has been a regular fixture on iconic TV series for some 20 years, starring in the likes of Homicide: Life on the Street, 24, True Blood, Battlestar Galactica, Prison Break and The Killing. Ifans, of course, made a name for himself as the scene-stealing Spike in Notting Hill, and has racked up star turns in the likes of Snowden, Elementary, The Amazing Spider-Man and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. And Orser was a recurring player in ER, Ray Donovan and the Taken trilogy, and played serial killer Richard Thompson opposite Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie in The Bone Collector.
Fittingly, Forbes rates the cast with this atypical : “I love them to bits. I’d take a bullet for them.”
Watch Berlin Station on Wednesday 13 December at 10:30pm on SBS. The first two seasons of the show are streaming at SBS On Demand from 14 December.
