Saara (Hannah Khalique-Brown) is having a bad week. On her first day of work at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), she finds herself defending the United Kingdom against a Russian cyberattack while balancing pressures from her overbearing Muslim family and managing her ideological but naïve boyfriend, James (Edward Holcroft). That might sound like an ideal setup for a spy drama about global cyber security, but The Undeclared War’s attempts to ground its political intrigue with the minutiae and everyday details of international communication analysts is ultimately very, very dull.
Danny (Simon Pegg), head of operations at GCHQ, runs his team as if they’re a customer-service call center; for them, a trip to the canteen for some beige-colored food might be the highlight of their day. There’s a lot of talking, a lot of looking at computer code, and a lot of talking about computer code. Even the always reliable Mark Rylance, as John Yeabsley, fails to invigorate the drama, though that’s perhaps inevitable, as John is a relic from the “old days” when GCHQ messages were sent via capsules in tubes rather than by email.
When the cyberattack begins, the boffins all stare at their screens, pat themselves on the back for spotting an anomaly or two, then move on to their next tasks. Only Saara is able to spot the hidden dangers of the attack and is whisked into a meeting where Prime Minister Makinde (Adrian Lester) postures as if he wants to declare World War III. A moment of potential conflict about disproportionate retaliation between the world’s superpowers is hindered when everyone is abruptly sent marching back to their desks to come up with less aggressive plans.
As Saara, our eyes and ears inside this world, navigates the power structures inside GCHQ, the series introduces subplots involving racial politics, murky political machinations, and even a same-sex flirtation but never commits to any one in particular or for very long. The details remain as elusive as the viral code that the office workers struggle to identify.
Throughout An Undeclared War, dreamlike sequences, which see Saara clambering up walls and exploring an idealized cityscape, give physicality to her programming investigations. It’s a rare break from the mundanity of characters simply staring at screens, giving us a glimpse into her analytical mind. But these scenes are all too brief and frustratingly infrequent, as we’re quickly plunged back into the fluorescent-lit prison of the GCHQ offices.
Khalique-Brown is captivating as the proverbially reluctant “smartest person in the room,” and it’s hard not to sympathize with her impending emotional meltdowns as events at home escalate. She’s a bright spark in a series that ambitiously tries to involve its audience in a profession that they all ostensibly know is important but whose seemingly mundane inner workings can inspire ambivalence. An Undeclared War is the streaming equivalent of watching your laptop run through a security update to remove Russian malware.
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