Homer's Odyssey.

A couple of weeks back I announced on Twitter that I was going to start watching this US TV Show called "Odyssey." Mainly this was because I'd reached the point in the evening when I just really liked the sound of my own voice.

However the show's central character "Odelle Ballard" is played by Anna Friel. Ever since her 1994 debut in the UK soap opera "Brookside" Friel has had a reputation in UK circles for only being involved in projects of a certain quality. As such I have no problem admitting that I was a little bit excited at the prospect of watching this show. However when they trailed it in the UK it was billed only as; "Coming Soon." I assumed that BBC2 would broadcast it in the Thursday night 9PM which has a reputation for being used for this type of show.

I was a bit disappointed then to discover that the BBC had decided to bury it in an awkward 9:15PM Sunday night slot. This put it up against a Channel 4 show called "Humans" which is aimed at a similar audience and not only began its season a week previously its episodes begin 15 minutes earlier at the top of the hour. If I didn't know better I would think that the BBC were deliberately running down the show's ratings in the hope of forcing the US distributor to sell the show at a lower price. Thursday night TV remains an utter wasteland.

Very much in the style of "Homeland" Odyssey sets out to examine why all these Islamist insurgencies have a habit of popping up in either resource rich or geopolitically important locations. The device it uses to do this is the Ballard character discovering that a US mining company has paid millions of dollars to an Al Qaeda leader that her special forces team have been sent to kill in Mali. Shadowy forces in the US Establishment then send private military contractors (PMC's) to kill Ballard's team. She survives and then - with the help of the Tuaregs - begins a sort of Odyssey to make this information public.

The show also takes a massive swipe at the "Occupy Wall Street (OWS)" protest movement that has recently morphed into the "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" movement. Although the spoilt rich kids who make up the movement initially get wind of this massive scandal they soon lose interest in favour of an almost religious worship of a Greek finance minister's bonkers economic policies.

Since I mentioned the show I've noticed that there has been a slight uptick in activity in the actual Mali. This could just be a renewed interest in the country leading to an increase in reporting or it could be a sign that people in Mali are getting a little paranoid that people are gossipping about them behind their backs. If it is the latter I feel I should reassure them that the show is far more about American society then anything to do with Mali. In fact in the US it's broadcast under the name "American Odyssey" to highlight this point.

As an example everyone in Mali knows that although they're not defined by skin colour Tuaregs tend to be properly, hardcore black. However in the show all the Tuaregs are portrayed as Arabs. This could be a mistake or intentionally done to allow the viewer to mistake the show's Islamist terrorists with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Also the show features Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who is no doubt sick of being reminded that he played "Simon Adebisi" in that much talked about show "Oz." While Oz is deliberately vague about exactly where in west Africa Adebisi is from in one blink and you'll miss it moment it's confirmed that he's from Nigeria. Akinnuoye-Agbaje's role in Odyssey could certainly then be interpreted as a reference to the way that Boko Haram suddenly exploded in Nigeria just after the Islamist insurgency in Mali was brought to an end.

Sadly I think Odyssey will end up posing more questions then it answers because I gather that it's already been cancelled after just one series. So perhaps it's more "Icarus" then "Odyssey."

17:15 on 19/7/15 (UK date).