Homeland Security: The TV Show

By Cynthia Fuchs, PopPolitics.com. Posted November 13, 2003.

Although the ABC television show "Threat Matrix" is based on what the station calls "the world's most secret and scariest database on terror," the show hasn't managed to enthrall audiences. In October, ABC rebroadcast "Threat Matrix" in a new time slot in the hopes of reaching a wider audience.

We are making progress.

-- Colonel Roger Atkins (Will Lyman), "Pilot"

This is worse than weight watchers.

-- Lark (Melora Walters), "Pilot"

Here's a terrorist threat that hasn't yet made a Fox News headline: bees. So unexpected, so diabolical, so simple, and so seemingly possible. At least it looks that way in the first few minutes of the first episode of ABC's Threat Matrix.

According to an opening global map, the episode's first shot is rocketing through space as if by a global positioning satellite, to the Minuteman Missile Site at the McClain Air Force Base in Wyoming. Following this view as it zaps through cables and layers of voices ("chatter," a la the movie Contact), along with requisite whooshing, zip-zap, zoom, to dump into some kind of security observation room, looking down from a ceiling mounted surveillance camera.

A bee wanders across the lens, then the focus racks to see two young men peering at their video screens: they're playing one of those first person shooter games, arguing about who's supposed to cover whom. "Damn," says the white one, "Ambush." Or, as his monitor announces, "Game Over!" Just at that moment, the black one looks up to see bees -- lots of them -- entering through the vents. And the white one goes a little crazy because, he says, "I'm allergic." Oh dear.

Enter the Team -- as yet of unknown origin -- being metal-detected as they approach the elevator that will take them to their target, deep inside the base. "We'll smoke 'em out and suck 'em up," says team leader, eerily echoing George W. Bush's repeated promise to smoke Osama and his ilk out of their caves. Once inside, the team removes their anti-bee gear and heads toward the warhead they're going to steal, helped along by their all-seeing techs, who fake the base's video feed (so the team can run around undetected), unlock doors, monitor progress and minutes ("You're out of time!").

Even for this tension buildup and action-movie music, the team succeeds, escaping with the warhead. The Department of Energy back in D.C. is in a panic, as the faux global positioning camera reveals. At just the moment when heads are likely to roll, team members show up outside the DOE window with the warhead in the trunk of their car (the voice on the cell phone taunts, "Missing something?"). "Who the hell are you?" asks the Officer in Big Trouble. "Special Agent in Charge John Kilmer," comes the answer, and yes, the team, as evil-doing as they have seemed to be until now, have been sent by the President himself to teach a lesson to the DOE officer, so clearly not in charge.

This introduction to the current (fictionalized) war on terrorism underlines what's been circulating in the (real life) press: agencies compete for money, prestige, and intel, undercutting the larger mission. What comes next, however, is particular to Threat Matrix. Working alongside John is his ex-wife, Frankie (Kelly Rutherford), whom her ex calls "the queen bee" (reasons presumably to be leaked later). When the Officer in Big Trouble complains that this pair of exes should have followed protocol, and let him in on the operation, John sneers, "In the old world, you're right. But no terrorist is going to follow protocol." Doh!

The series, its opening credits remind you weekly, is focused on the activities of John's elite team, one of 10 squads culled from the CIA, FBI, and NSA. "Their job," officious Colonel Roger Atkins (Will Lyman) namechecks Secretary Ridge and assures reporters in his daily press briefing, "is to keep us safe." I, for one, feel better already. During this same press conference, a reporter asks the Colonel, operations liaison to the President, about the Echelon "network," which allows the government to monitor emails, phone calls, and faxes: "What assurances do we have that Echelon won't be used to spy on Americans?" she says, earnestly referring to her notepad. "Because," he snips, "It's against the law, Pat." Well, phew.

Much as this exchange suggests, any remotely counter-administration thinking that filters into Threat Matrix is cut short: patriotism means you toe the line, Pat. When former FBI forensics specialist Lark (wonderful Melora Walters, remembered prior to this jacked-up venture, for her delicate work as the abused daughter in Magnolia, and here stunningly leather-cat-suited), raises a question about holding underage suspects without allowing them access to a lawyer, John informs her that it's okay, because they're enemy combatants. Lark frowns, "They're kids, Kilmer." Tough toasties. As Kilmer understands, they're terrorists, whether recruited or brainwashed, committed or confused, and neither the press nor the Justice Department needs to know they're in custody (he instructs her to "keep a Chinese wall between us and Justice," spy talk for lying). And if she has a problem with that, she can just let John know. She backs off, for now.

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