The Apocalypse Watch (1997)

A two-part Robert Ludlum TV thriller set in London Docklands and Prague, both somewhat overused as locations in this sort of thing, with the usual complex-to-unbelievable plot. CIA-backed conspiracy theorist Patrick Bergin gets involved when his field agent brother (John Shea) shows up with VR-imparted false memories of a list of bogus double-agents and some Manchurian Candidate-programming in connection with a big neo-Nazi plot that involves deadly poison sealed in concrete since WWII manufactured by a German corporation whose logo is a thinly-disguised swastika, a British fascist faction (the New National Party) rising to power on a platform of law and order in reaction to a wave of terrorism their own active wing is behind (typically, James Aubrey plays more like a hard-right toff Tory than the Essex thug proles who actually rep the BNP) and a second-half plot to poison key reservoirs in Britain as a preliminary to pulling the same stunt in America. The new fuhrer turns out to be Benedick Blythe, supposedly-dead husband of heroine Virginia Madsen, who has a mid-story spell brainwashed and trying to kill Bergin but turns out predictably to be one of the good guys even as it is heavily signalled that Hillary Clintonalike Glynis Barber, wife of US Ambassador David Brandon, is in with the baddies.

The elder Nazis are played by Brits from the past like Geoffrey Toone and Christopher Neame. At three hours, it slows to a crawl with the usual shoot-outs and chases and repetitions (we seem to see gliders dropping poison bombs in every one of the fifty threatened reservoirs). It is so melodramatic that at the evil castle HQ of the conspiracy, the bad guy techies use swastika mousemats. Directed by Kevin Connor, with past-their-expiration-date stars doing a pro job.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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