7.4 /10 1 Votes
68% Metacritic Country of origin United Kingdom Producer(s) Grainne Marmion Final episode date 7 December 2006 | 7.9/10 IMDb 7.7/10 TV No. of episodes 6/7 First episode date 2 November 2006 Networks BBC, BBC One, BBC America | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Created by Lizzie Mickery
Daniel Percival Directed by Michael Offer, Daniel Percival Starring Jason Isaacs
Ben Daniels
Sharon Gless
Nigel Bennett
Eva Birthistle Cast Jason Isaacs, Ben Daniels, Sharon Gless, Eva Birthistle, Lennie James | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The State Within is a 2006 six-hour British television political drama serial, written by Lizzie Mickery and Daniel Percival, produced by Grainne Marmion as a joint BBC–BBC America production, that was broadcast by BBC One in the United Kingdom from Thursday, 2 November 2006.
Contents
It was originally broadcast and released on DVD as six 1-hour episodes. It was subsequently released on Netflix in the UK and USA in seven 50-minute episodes.
Story
The protagonist of The State Within is Sir Mark Brydon (Jason Isaacs), the British Ambassador to Washington at the centre of a political conspiracy threatening to depose Western governments. As such, he must prevent a war, while facing a personal dilemma. Lynne Warner (Sharon Gless) is the United States Secretary of Defense, Nicholas Brocklehurst (Ben Daniels) is nominally the British Counsellor External Affairs, but is a Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) agent assigned to embassy duty, and James Sinclair (Alex Jennings) is the former British ambassador to the fictional former Soviet republic of Tyrgyzstan (cf. Kyrgyzstan). This character resembles Craig Murray, the womanizing British ambassador who exposed British and American complicity in torture and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.
Cast
Reception
In 2006, Episode One of The State Within drew 5.7 million viewers though, by Episode Three, the audience stood at 3.1 million. On 22 January 2007, the serial was released on DVD. In the United States, its premiere broadcast, on BBC America, was the Presidents Day weekend (17–19 February), as a three-part miniseries concluding on 24 February 2007. In the United Kingdom BBC Four re-ran the miniseries in June 2007, as part of its Conspiracy U.S.A. Week programming.
The State Within was nominated for 2 Golden Globe Awards in the category, Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film.