Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The City And The City’ On BritBox, Where David Morrissey Investigates A Crime In Two Rival Cities

It’s taken a few years for an adaptation of China Miéville’s 2009 novel The City And The City to be made, and for good reason; it’s a complicated story of two Cold War-era-Berlin-like twin cities, and the visual logistics alone must have been complex to figure out. BritBox brings the new BBC adaptation to the states. Does it do the hit novel justice?

THE CITY AND THE CITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shots of the twin cities of Beszel, which look like 1980s East Berlin, and Ul Qoma, which is modern and sleek. A voice over goes “Nowhere else works like the cities.”

The Gist: Bezel and Ul Qoma are European city-states that border each other, but most definitely resemble Cold War-era Berlin; one is restrictive and behind the times, the other is modern and very Western in nature. Travel between the two is extremely restricted, and when someone from one city is spotted in the other and isn’t supposed to be there, it’s considered a “Breach” and a special police force is dispatched to take care of the invader. If you live in Bezel, you can’t even look at someone across the border without the Breach squad knowing about it.

Inspector Tyador Borlú (David Morrissey) has lived in Bezel his whole life, and has learned to hate Ul Qoma from a young age. He has been there before, because he has a working knowledge of how the rivalry works, with bitterly tragic results for his family. When a body that’s dressed like a prostitute is found, he’s called in on the case, and he brings along the patrol officer on the case, Constable Corwi (Mandeep Dhillon) with him on the investigation.

What he finds out, via a phone call coming from Ul Qoma, is that the body is an American grad student that lived in Ul Qoma and was one of the many young protesters who is calling for the cities to reunify. The old hands in the city know that reunification is impossible because “the cities love hating each other,” Borlú says in another voice over. “It keeps us alive.”

So did she voluntarily breach, or was her body dumped in Bezel? The distinction is important, as Borlú is determined to see the case through; if it’s a breach, then the Breach squad will take over. But once he gets a tape that shows that she was dumped in Bezel, he is free to investigate, which includes going back to Ul Qoma for the first time since his wife Katrynia (Lara Pulver) died.

Our Take: The City and The City is based on a novel by China Miéville, and to say it’s a bit complex is an understatement. The logistics involved in bringing the complexity of the novel to life come to light in the first episode, where the viewer has to pay really close attention to understand where Bezel ends and Ul Qoma begins, who Breach is, what Breach is, and just why Inspector Borlú is so bitter about the rival city.

Some of the insight can be seen in scenes where we see Borlú with Katrynia. It seems that they’re real time, referring to events that are happening in the current case. Then, after Borlú gets a phone call from the dead girl’s friend in Ul Qoma, we see that Katrynia is gone. In reality, she’s dead, a victim of the rivalry between the cities, but that twist is so confusing that even mentioning it here won’t really make it any clearer when you go to watch it.

The twin cities are a pretty thinly-veiled fictional versions of East and West Berlin, and it seems like the story happens in both the past and the future simultaneously, adding to the confusion. The novel was published in 2009, so this isn’t a case of delayed adaptation making the content outdated. It’s just a mishmash, with confusing visuals subbing for what are likely detailed descriptions in print.

One thing we like is that Morrissey is in a show that’s more appropriate for his acting skills. His bitter, emotional performance is much closer to his career norm than his wooden take on The Governor in The Walking Dead, which has been our lasting memory of him despite the fact that he’s had plenty of other acting roles since then.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: “Whatever they do to me, it’s my duty. And my penance,” Borlú says in voice over as he looks out his window at Ul Qoma, knowing he has to go back there for his investigation.

Sleeper Star: We didn’t understand half of what she was saying, but we loved Dhillon’s spitfire presence as Constable Corwi.

Most Pilot-y Line: Borlú’s boss, Commissar Gadlem (Ron Cook), seems to be there for comic relief, as he seems to be nothing but a prat who gets in Borlú’s way rather than help him.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Morrissey’s performance isn’t enough to make up for how confusing the show is.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch The City and The City on BritBox