Keeping an eye on the storm

COBRA Sky one, 9pm

WITH an impending geomagnetic storm threatening the world and all of humanity, this thriller has all the ingredients of a 1990s disaster movie.

Except that Armageddon is finally coming and Bruce Willis is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the drama focuses on British prime minister Robert

Sutherland, played by Scot Robert Carlyle, as he leads Britain through this sudden and terrifying crisis.

It starts, of course, as these things often do, with mutterings from the Met Office and someone who knows about magnetic storms being ignored.

Fraser Walker (Fortitude’s Richard Dormer) – one of the best crisis contingency planners the country has ever known – is rather worried the storm could cause chaos. “Oh, a few singed eyebrows?” mocks home secretary Archie Glover-Morgan, played with relish by Killing Eve’s David Haig.

“It’s not a big meteorite or the sun blowing up!”

This is TV code for a distinct possibility that the sun will in fact blow up. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

COBRA is convened, which stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – a council that meets in times of emergency.

Among the other senior politicians to look out for are chief of staff Anna Marshall, played by The Crown’s Victoria Hamilton.

They must all work together to help avert disaster as a national emergency unfolds.

And, of course, they’ve all got personal dramas going on that add to the tension.

Admittedly, this political thriller hardly has the wit of The West Wing, and it’s all a bit ridiculous.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t be absolutely hooked…