After my post about scaling the Geoblock to catch the first two episodes of Richard Armitage’s new project, Berlin Station, I tried to find the rest through other channels. By ‘other channels’ I mean the back channels used to make Game of Thrones the most pirated show in the world. Serv over at Me + and Richard Armitage sent me a few links. Sadly no luck. (Thanks, Serv, you tried.) I decided to use a tried-and-true tactic in Canada-waiting.
Currently, Canadians have no word who will pick up the Canadian Broadcast rights to Berlin Station. There’s a list of international broadcasters, and that’s all anybody knows at the moment. I made do with rewatching Hannibal, theorizing about his role in Oceans 8, and generally waiting. I have survived The Walking Dead hiatus and Droughlander, this is a piece of 6’2 chocolate cake.
You know what they say if a person can’t go forward, go back. In this case, the happy discovery on Google Play of Strike Back: Origins. The six-part series, originally titled Chris Ryan’s Strike Back, played on Sky Tv in 2010 and starred Richard Armitage and a pre-Rick Grimes Andrew Lincoln. Yes, it’s has a 24 feeling, and John Porter says ‘F*ck’ rather than ‘G*d Damn It, Chloe!’ The usual terrorist trope aside, the show tried to flesh out its characters and has a little something extra as opposed to the usual boys-guns-and-girls fare.
The show moved towards a partnership with Cinemax and Armitage got the part in The Hobbit. In the opening scene of the retooled version, Porter was a character seen briefly in the opening scene, on his knees, with a gun to his head, providing the motivation for Sullivan and Stapleton to go after a terrorist cell. For me, the rest of the new series, one that will get a reboot soon after going off the air, made me whisper thanks to Peter Jackson.
Strike Back: Origins is action-packed, fluff as only the Brits can do. Armitage plays a character on the hunt for redemption after a mission gone wrong, while Andrew Lincoln plays Hugh Collison, a slippery desk jockey who knows what happened. Put them together it’s the perfect show to tie me over until The Walking Dead comes back and Berlin Station gets a Canadian air date. It’s also perfect for Library Techs to burn off their last vacation day. At least this one.
Unpaused Life 
Waiting patiently in BC too.
I found Strike Back Origins on iTunes and watched it late last year. I felt as you did watching the first episode of the next “season”, which was just not the same kind of feel at all.
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Where do we start with the awfulness? The characters limped along, the plotting consisted of boobs and bombs, and never have I felt so happy for a character to get shot in the head like (Spoiler).
Mr Armitage is both talented and very astute to wiggle out of his contract.
Andrew Lincoln looks so shiny and new in that series. I was like ‘oh, look, season one Rick look. Before getting smothered in walker goo.’
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