The best TV shows tap into the current zeitgeist. The X-Files mined paranoid government conspiracies about UFOs at a time of great hope and uncertainty at the end of the Cold War when all the old convictions surrounding a traditional enemy disappeared in the 90s. 24 was a return to the tub thumping jingoism of Reagan's America when 9/11 seemed to presage a global threat to Western democracy in the noughties. Now at a time of even greater anxieties with the continuing War on Terror, the further destabilisation of the Middle East with the war in Syria and hawkish attitudes towards Iran, a global refugee crisis, President Trump in the White House, a sudden lurch to populist, Right Wing politics across the World, increasing tensions with Russia, an American trade war with China, Brexit in Britain and global climate change seen in catastrophic flooding, the melting of the Polar ice caps, bush fires in Australia and rising temperatures across the globe year-on-year for the past ten years, we have Messiah - an original series from Netflix.
The premise is devilishly simple - what would happen if a man purporting to be Jesus Christ returned to Earth? Played admirably by Mehdi Debhi, a Tunisian Belgian actor last seen in Mary, Queen of Scots, with a stillness and range of monosyllabic utterances that echoes Robert Powell's performance as Jesus of Nazareth, is Al-Masih as he is called a divine entity or a dangerous con artist? The set up is intriguing and keeps you hooked. Three miracles are performed in the first three episodes or are they elaborate tricks? Depending on your personal disposition, you will either root for Al-Masih and hope that he is the Second Coming as foretold in the Gospels as the antidote to present day travails, or consider him no more than a deluded false prophet with mental illness issues. After binging on the first six episodes, I'm hooked and hope that the story returns to the Middle East where there is much greater resonance and profundity in the remaining four episodes, but these are clearly much more expensive to make and more complex to write embracing as it does the intricate geo-politics of the Middle East and superpower rivalry. Messiah is a nuanced, multi-layered and captivating delight. Above all, it's relevance speaks of the times.
The premise is devilishly simple - what would happen if a man purporting to be Jesus Christ returned to Earth? Played admirably by Mehdi Debhi, a Tunisian Belgian actor last seen in Mary, Queen of Scots, with a stillness and range of monosyllabic utterances that echoes Robert Powell's performance as Jesus of Nazareth, is Al-Masih as he is called a divine entity or a dangerous con artist? The set up is intriguing and keeps you hooked. Three miracles are performed in the first three episodes or are they elaborate tricks? Depending on your personal disposition, you will either root for Al-Masih and hope that he is the Second Coming as foretold in the Gospels as the antidote to present day travails, or consider him no more than a deluded false prophet with mental illness issues. After binging on the first six episodes, I'm hooked and hope that the story returns to the Middle East where there is much greater resonance and profundity in the remaining four episodes, but these are clearly much more expensive to make and more complex to write embracing as it does the intricate geo-politics of the Middle East and superpower rivalry. Messiah is a nuanced, multi-layered and captivating delight. Above all, it's relevance speaks of the times.