John Holden Bad daytime soap opera with superficial TV actors & actresses, no real plot, no character development, and your typical anti-Muslim perspective. All of the main actors are from TV-land and unable to rise up from that style of acting: heavy looks, long stares, punctilious walks towards the camera, histrionic dialogue. A combo CSI and Days of our Lives.Dialogue is epigonic Mamet. "I know I'm right, but what if I'm not? Then we better pray". "We made a mistake. No it was my mistake." "I just bet my life on knowing the difference." There are just 4 alternating scenes, in no particular sequence: 1. Teletype-font subtitles appearing one character at a time with a staccato noise: "Situation room, NSA, Special Secret Bunker, Colorado"; "Kevin Farkas, Special Assistant Directing Manager for Counter-counter-terrorism"; "Ultra special really secret strategy session, Langley ...". This takes the place of any actual drama.2. Dialogue-heavy emotional relationship scenes between two main characters that either explain the plot or an aspect of their relationship. Usually it's a long discussion of a relationship. This shows how human they are while they wait to see where the terrorists will next strike.3. Meetings at huge conference tables, often with big TV screens in the background.4. Short bursts of action around some plot point. Most of each scene is filler - the camera follows police through streets & corridors that add nothing to the story but do help to make up the 6-hour running time. Once someone reaches for a camera and is shot; later it's death over a cell phone. Two of the good guys snap and almost kill bad guys. But they later find time to talk about their motivations at great length.I fell asleep for an hour or so during a conference room scene. I awoke in the middle of another. It hadn't made any sense before I fell asleep. I went back a few scenes and it was just the same thing.There are 4 types of characters: 1. Young women (and 1-2 guys) who have impossibly risen to places of power in security agencies. They run the teams, make decisions, talk directly to the US president.2. Haggard older women with scary makeup who run the agencies themselves.3. Three good Muslims, one of whom manages to defend Muslims by saying "It would be like blaming Christians for the KKK." 4. Hordes of Muslim bad guys.I suspect that the locus of the movie was "Let's make another anti-Muslim movie but with a twist: we'll have a couple of good Muslims; we'll show that the Saudis prosecute terrorists. But the head bad guy will of course spout a lot of Muslim rhetoric, utilize little kids, and murder randomly." My favorite scene is when the FBI guy explains how a character from Chechnya is actually a Muslim although though he's white - he even explains about the word Caucasian. So, yes, even white guys can be bad. And presumably black guys can be good.If you watch a lot of TV and you like the neocons, you'll probably enjoy The Grid. And you'll probably remember that white Muslims are as bad as any other kind.

MattGUK 1. Either I'm at right angles to the rest of the world(knowing me, that's a possibility;)) or the characterisation of this was actually pretty good. With all due respect to iceman Jack Bauer, good guys who are not all-out professional are easier to relate to IMO.2. As for the jihadis, well at one extreme there was Kaz who I wanted to get blown up by his own bomb in the middle of nowhere. So mate, why do you want to take part in mass murder? You feel you have to prove your manhood? What a sicko.At the other end of the scale was the Egyptian doctor guy.In theory not that bad a person, wants the best for his patients etc etc. Wanted out after the Lagos bomb. Got suckered back to the jihadi cause a bit too easily for my liking though but then again his only target in London were the Arab oilmen who he though were responsible for stonewalling the development of his clinic. Then again he did back up Kaz's efforts in Chicago but he also questioned the younger guy's reasoning. Complicated.3. Brave gamble by Raeza at the end there but I had a hunch he'd lose it.4. So Acton was backing up Muhamed's crew yet he's still around? What's that about?All in all though this was a job well done IMO.

Alex-372 I don't like this mini series. It tries to be "24", but it doesn't have the guts, the writing ability or the actors to get away with it.No one in this series is likable. I don't like the switching back and forth between uppercrust English (Hari Kumar, anyone?) and arabic dialog, because no one talks like that. Dermot Mulroney who is no Kiefer Sutherland, comes of as a selfrighteous prick, Jemma Redgrave looks plain (unlike the rest of the family), and the British cast seems to have walked straight out of one of the myriad of second tier British cop series.When watching this stuff, I thought "there are Miami Vice episodes made 20 years ago that this dreck couldn't touch". And that's with all modern technology.

emmakhan This is a pretty good series, and as a South Asian American (with Muslim heritage) I was intrigued by it. The best acting is done by the Brits and the Raza Michaels character. And to the viewer who said it shows only Muslim terrorists- that is not true. Akil (the young scared Brit) does not practice Islam- his brother Hamid does. Kaz (the American blonde) turns to Islam because he has a bad relationship with his dad. These (youngish) guys have seen the "bad" side of life (jail/racism/poverty, or whatnot). So they look for a solution. Maybe they get into religion. Maybe violence. Or both. There are no easy solutions and all people are not black/white in their ways- and this show opens up about that.