Babylon (TV series)

Babylon is a British comedy-drama television series co-created by Danny Boyle, Robert Jones, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain for Channel 4, and produced by Nightjack Ltd.

The series is set in London, and follows various characters working for the Metropolitan Police Service, police officers on the streets, who are responding to incidents, as well as the top management and PR department at New Scotland Yard, who try to counter any backlash from such incidents.

Plot
The series follows the new Director of Communications, the American Liz Garvey (Brit Marling), who has been headhunted by the Police Commissioner Richard Miller (James Nesbitt) 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 and a team of authorised firearms officers in the Specialist Firearms Command.

Cast

 * Brit Marling as Liz Garvey, Director of Communications
 * James Nesbitt as Sir Richard Miller, Commissioner
 * Bertie Carvel as Finn Kirkwood, Communications Deputy
 * Ella Smith as Mia Conroy, Communications staff member
 * Paterson Joseph as Charles Inglis, Assistant Commissioner, later Commissioner
 * Jonny Sweet as Tom Oliver, Superintendent and Personal Aide to the Commissioner
 * Nicola Walker as Sharon Franklin, Assistant Commissioner
 * Jill Halfpenny as PC Davina Bancroft, TSG officer, married to SCO19 officer Banjo
 * Cavan Clerkin as PC Damien "Clarkey" Clarke, TSG officer
 * Owain Arthur as PC Paul "Nobbo" Norrington, TSG officer
 * Adam Deacon 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 as PC Tony Forbes, SCO19 officer
 * Nick Blood as PC Warwick Collister, SCO19 officer
 * Daniel Kaluuya as Matt Coward, documentary film maker
 * Ralph Brown as Grant Delgado, Deputy Mayor of London

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 and London on 17 April 2014.

Danny Boyle directed the pilot episode, while Jon S. Baird 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 Training Ground in Gravesend, Kent 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 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".

Reception
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes 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, 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 in the United States on 8 January 2015. In Australia, the series premiered on 28 September 2015 on BBC First.