''Babylon'' is a British

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

television series co-created by

Danny Boyle Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including ''Shallow Grave'', '' Trainspotting'' and its sequel ''T2 Trainspotting'', '' The Beach'', '' 28 Days Later'', '' Su ...

, Robert Jones,

Jesse Armstrong Jesse David Armstrong (born 13 December 1970) is a British author, screenwriter, and producer. He is a co-creator of the Channel 4 comedy series ''Peep Show'' (2003–2015) and '' Fresh Meat'' (2011–2016), and the creator of the HBO satirica ...

and

Sam Bain Sam Bain (born 3 August 1971) is a British comedy writer, best known for the Channel 4 sitcom ''Peep Show''. He attended St Paul's School in London before graduating from the University of Manchester, where he met his writing partner Jesse Armst ...

for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

, and produced by Nightjack Ltd. The series is set in London, and follows various characters working for the

Metropolitan Police Service The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

police officer A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...

s on the streets, who are responding to incidents, as well as the top management and PR department at

New Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

, who try to counter any backlash from such incidents.

Plot

The series follows the new Director of Communications, the American Liz Garvey (

Brit Marling Brit Heyworth Marling (born August 7, 1982) is an American actress and screenwriter. She rose to prominence after starring in several films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, including ''Sound of My Voice'' (2011), ''Another Earth'' ...

), who has been headhunted by the Police Commissioner Richard Miller (

James Nesbitt William James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is an actor from Northern Ireland. From 1987, Nesbitt spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical '' Up on the Roof'' (1987, 1989) to the political drama ''Paddywack'' (1994) ...

) to drag the force into the new media age, and her conflicts with her own department and legal bureaucracy. This is intercut with the happenings within a team in the

Territorial Support Group The Territorial Support Group (TSG) is a Met Operations unit of London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) which specialises in public order policing, amongst other specialist areas. In 2012 it consisted of 793 officers and 29 support staff. Th ...

and a team of authorised firearms officers in the

Specialist Firearms Command The Specialist Firearms Command (SCO19) is the firearms unit of the Metropolitan Police Service (Greater London, England). The Command is responsible for providing a firearms-response capability, assisting the rest of the service which is not r ...

Cast

as Liz Garvey,

Director of Communications Director of communications is a position in both the private and public sectors. A director of communications is responsible for managing and directing an organization's internal and external communications. Directors of communications supervis ...

as Sir Richard Miller,

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

Bertie Carvel Robert Hugh Carvel (born 6 September 1977) is a British actor. He has twice won a Laurence Olivier Award: for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role as Miss Trunchbull in ''Matilda the Musical'', and for Best Actor in a Supporti ...

as Finn Kirkwood, Communications Deputy * Ella Smith as Mia Conroy, Communications staff member *

Paterson Joseph Paterson D. Joseph (born 22 June 1964) is a British actor. He appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company productions of ''King Lear'' and '' Love's Labour's Lost'' in 1990. On television he is best known for his roles in ''Casualty'' (1997–1998) ...

as Charles Inglis, Assistant Commissioner, later

Jonny Sweet Jonny Sweet (born 1985) is a British comedian and the recipient of the 2009 Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer. Early life Sweet was born in Nottingham and educated at the local independent school Nottingham High School. He read English ...

as Tom Oliver,

Superintendent Superintendent may refer to: *Superintendent (police), Superintendent of Police (SP), or Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), a police rank *Prison warden or Superintendent, a prison administrator *Superintendent (ecclesiastical), a church exec ...

and

Personal Aide A personal assistant, also referred to as personal aide (PA) or personal secretary (PS), is a job title describing a person who assists a specific person with their daily business or personal task,. it is a sub-specialty of secretarial duties ...

to the Commissioner *

Nicola Walker Nicola Jane Walker (born 15 May 1970) is an English actress, known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, including that of Ruth Evershed in the spy drama '' Spooks'' (2003–2006 and 2009–2011 ...

as Sharon Franklin, Assistant Commissioner *

Jill Halfpenny Jill Halfpenny (born 15 July 1975) is an English actress. Her notable roles include Rebecca Hopkins in ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' (1999–2000), Kate Mitchell in BBC One soap opera ''EastEnders'' (2002–2005), Izzie Redpath in '' W ...

as PC Davina Bancroft, TSG officer, married to SCO19 officer Banjo *

Cavan Clerkin Cavan Clerkin (born 1973) is a British actor and filmmaker from Hackney, London. Career Clerkin has appeared in various TV shows including ''Smack the Pony'', ''The Inbetweeners'' and ''The IT Crowd'', and feature films ''Gangster No. 1'', '' ...

as PC Damien "Clarkey" Clarke, TSG officer *

Owain Arthur Owain Arthur (born 5 March 1983) is a Welsh actor, who rose to fame playing ''Francis Henshall'' in The National Theatre's production of ''One Man, Two Guvnors'' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. His early years were spent in Bangor, Wales, fil ...

as PC Paul "Nobbo" Norrington, TSG officer *

Adam Deacon Adam Steven Deacon (born 4 March 1983) is an English actor, rapper, writer and director. He is known for his lead role in the films ''Kidulthood'', sequel ''Adulthood'' and for his directorial debut, '' Anuvahood''. Career Deacon was brought up ...

as PC Robbie Vas, TSG officer who moves over to SCO19 * Andrew Brooke as PC Neil "Banjo" Bancroft, SCO19 officer, married to TSG officer Davina *

Stuart Martin Stuart Martin (born 8 January 1986) is a Scottish actor. He is known for his roles in the Channel 4 comedy-drama ''Babylon'' (2014), as well as the historical dramas '' Medici: Masters of Florence'' (2016), '' Jamestown'' (2017–2019), and ''M ...

as PC Tony Forbes, SCO19 officer *

Nick Blood Nick Blood (born 20 March 1982) is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Lance Hunter in Marvel's ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and ''Kieran in ''Trollied''. Early life Blood was born in Aylesbury, England. He joined his local drama club a ...

as PC Warwick Collister, SCO19 officer *

Daniel Kaluuya Daniel Kaluuya (; born 24 February 1989) is a British actor. Prominent both on screen and stage, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and nomin ...

as Matt Coward, documentary film maker *

Ralph Brown Ralph William John Brown (born 18 June 1957) is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in ''Withnail and I'', the security guard Aaron (a.k.a. "85") in ''Alien 3'', DJ Bob Silver in ''The Boat That Rocked'' aka ' ...

as Grant Delgado,

Deputy Mayor of London A Deputy Mayor is a member of the London Mayoral cabinet, in the executive arm of the Greater London Authority. They serve as political advisors with responsibilities and powers corresponding to portfolios delegated by the Mayor. One of them mu ...

Production

Channel 4 originally announced that ''Babylon'' had been commissioned for Autumn 2014 on 23 December 2013. They further announced the six-part series had begun filming, in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on 17 April 2014. Danny Boyle directed the pilot episode, while

Jon S. Baird Jon S. Baird (born 9 November 1972) is a BAFTA winning Scottish film director. Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, he began his career at BBC Television. Education Baird studied at the University of Aberdeen in the 1990s, where he graduated ...

directed the first three episodes of Series 1 with Sally El Hosaini directing the last three. Episode two was partly filmed at the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

Training Ground in

Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and features in the scenes where Robbie (Adam Deacon) trains at the firing range. Episode six, the series finale, recreated the London Riots of 2011. In a 2015 interview with ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' magazine, Sam Bain stated that it was unlikely ''Babylon'' would return for a further series, with Jesse Armstrong explaining that "getting everyone back together seemed like it would be extraordinarily complicated, so we haven't pursued it".

Episodes

Pilot (2014)

Series 1 (2014)

Reception

Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gave the show a 75% "fresh" rating with an average rating of 7.2/10 based on 16 reviews. The critical consensus states: "Babylon successfully combines two genres into one show, adding great actors and timely subject matter to stealthy wit and hard-hitting drama."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

International broadcast

''Babylon'' premiered on

SundanceTV Sundance TV (formerly known as Sundance Channel) is an American pay television channel owned by AMC Networks that launched on February 1, 1996. The channel is named after Robert Redford's character in ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' and, w ...

in the United States on 8 January 2015. In Australia, the series premiered on 28 September 2015 on

BBC First BBC First is an entertainment subscription television channel featuring comedy, crime, drama and film programming, originating from UK and mostly from the BBC. The channel is wholly owned and operated by BBC Studios. The channel began rolling ou ...

References

External links

* {{Danny Boyle Channel 4 original programming 2014 British television series debuts 2014 British television series endings English-language television shows Serial drama television series