Pine Gap (2018) – Excellent Engaging thriller

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Genre: Spy Thriller

Platform: Netflix

Length – 6 episodes x 58 minutes each

Director: Matt King

Writers: Greg Haddrick. Felicity Packard.

Plot:   Gus Thomson (Parker Sawyers) is an American operative posted to the Pine Gap SIGINT facility in the Australian outback.  The facility is operated jointly by Australia and USA. His multi lingual Serbian born Australian colleague Jasmina Delic (Tess Haubrich) has initial hassles with his operational style but soon they are lovers. Gus must deal with his father who thinks he is wasting his life.  The American in charge Ethan James (Steve Toussaint) is told by a math savant Moses Dreyfus (Mark Leonard Winter) that he has found a tiny virus code in their impenetrable facility which is not linked to any external facility through cables or transmissions. That means that there is a human mole who has done this. Ethan has no choice but to inform his Australian counterpart Kath Sinclair (Jacqueline McKenzie) about this development. Meanwhile there is a Chinese company whose local head Zhou Lin (Jason Chong) is spreading his influence all over the area, including attracting the local aborigines who claim the Pine Gap as their ancestral ground. Things get complicated as Ethan’s neglected wife is slowly attracted to Zhou…

There are no guns, girls, gadgets, explosions.  There is not even a single onscreen death.

This is how spy series should be. Good SOLID PLOTTING.

Pine Gap is an exceptionally good spy thriller series which is based around the fact there is a real facility at Pine Gap in Australia that is jointly operated with the US SIGINT agency NSA (National Security Agency), once jokingly referred to as No Such Agency. As can be seen from Snowden’s revelations years ago, the NSA is the one that intercepts all electronic traffic – civilian, military and or otherwise ; whether they able to understand and decipher them is beyond this discussion.

This is the basis of the plot which starts with the geopolitical angle of US-China-Australia relationship which progressively gets worse and stormy leading to strains on the partnership leaders and the front end operatives. Here, the “operative” only stare at screens and hoover/ deduce the information from them.

I personally do not like TV Series that keep getting extended interminably to multiple seasons as it soon becomes apparent that the producers and the writers are only bent upon stretching the plot and the characters stories. However, I wish this series had actually got a second season as the open ending clearly shows that the writers had more in mind given that every character has some inner demon/ secret to deal with.

Though couple of episodes meander a bit, especially the ones where the innocent Moses is suspected of  sex with underage minors showing how most people have a “one-track mind”, this is cracking good and absorbing and at six episodes a quick watch. I binge watched it over two days. Try not to miss

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 5 out of 5

Direction – 4 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Total – 4.5 out of 5