''The Last Enemy'' is a five-part

BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

drama starring

Benedict Cumberbatch Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received various accolades, including a British Academy Television Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurence O ...

and featuring

Robert Carlyle Robert Carlyle (born 14 April 1961) is a Scottish actor. His film work includes '' Trainspotting'' (1996), ''The Full Monty'' (1997), ''The World Is Not Enough'' (1999), ''Angela's Ashes'' (1999), '' The Beach'' (2000), ''28 Weeks Later'' (20 ...

and Max Beesley. It first aired on 17 February 2008.

Plot

Set in a recognisable, near-future London beset by terrorism and

illegal immigration Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

, ''The Last Enemy'' features the introduction of "TIA" (

Total Information Awareness Total Information Awareness (TIA) was a mass detection program by the United States Information Awareness Office. It operated under this title from February to May 2003 before being renamed Terrorism Information Awareness. Based on the concep ...

), a centralised

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

that can be used to track and monitor anybody, effectively by putting all available government and corporate – i.e. credit card and bank activity, phone use, internet use, purchases, rentals, etc. – information in one place. The story deals with a political cover-up centred on a sanctioned but secret medical experiment run amok with key members of the government trying desperately to hide all evidence of their experimental batch of vaccine that seems to be causing a deadly

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

. The complex story unspools to reveal the moral, social and privacy concerns of this hypothetical TIA system in a post- 7/7 world, including such control mechanisms familiar to both real life and science fiction as retinal scans, fingerprint identification and ubiquitous camera and cellphone surveillance footage. The story is told through the eyes of a mathematical genius, Stephen Ezard, who is portrayed as a recluse showing some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But the shy genius overcomes his own inhibitions to burrow into a highly compromised British government using his brilliance and their TIA system only to find himself ultimately trapped by the people he most trusts, and to learn he is a pawn in manipulative Security State machinations which take the people he most loves from him and compromise him forever.

Viewing figures

Distribution

* ''The Last Enemy'' aired in the United States on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

stations on ''

Masterpiece Contemporary ''Masterpiece'' (formerly known as ''Masterpiece Theatre'') is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH-TV, WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on January 10, 1971. The series has presented numerous acclaim ...

''. * In

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, ''The Last Enemy'' TV series commenced airing on free-to-air-TV on

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...

(the national public television channel) from 8:30pm on 19 July 2009 and concluded on 16 August 2009. * ''The Last Enemy'' aired on

TVO TVO (stylized as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates flagship station CICA-DT (channel 19) in To ...

in Ontario, Canada from 9:00 pm on 1–29 April 2009 * ''The Last Enemy'' aired weekly in Denmark on

DR1 DR1 (DR Et) is the flagship television channel of the DR (broadcaster), Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). It became Denmark's first television station when it began broadcasting in 1951 – at first only for an hour a day three times a we ...

from 10:45 pm on 26 January 2012. * ''The Last Enemy'' is available on Amazon Prime Video and on YouTube. As of 2020, it is available on the

STV Player STV Player is a video on demand service owned by STV Group and available free-of-charge across the UK, online, on mobile and on all major TV platforms, including Sky Glass, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Freeview Play and Virgin Me ...

in Scotland.

References

External links

*
''The Last Enemy''
at

the BBC ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Enemy, The BBC Television shows 2008 British television series debuts 2008 British television series endings Television shows set in London 2000s British drama television series Television series by WGBH PBS original programming