The Christmas-set series has a near-perfect 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix has just added Black Doves, a new thriller show that is easily one of the best of the year.
Created by prolific writer Joe Barton (Giri/Haji, The Lazarus Project), the series stars Keira Knightley as Helen – a spy for a private, shady organisation in London.
Married to a high-ranking British politician (Andrew Buchan) – who has no idea about her spy career – Helen uses her husband to access top-secret information which she then passes on to her employers (represented by Sarah Lancashire).
However, when a civil servant named Jason (Andrew Koji) – whom Helen was having an affair with – is assassinated, she goes on the warpath seeking revenge.
Helping Helen to work out why Jason was killed is Sam (Ben Whishaw), a suave assassin with his own demons.
Also boasting as part of its cast Adeel Akhtar, Ella Lily Hyland, Finn Bennett, Kathryn Hunter, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Paapa Essiedu, Sam Troughton and Tracey Ullman, JOE has seen two of the series’ six episodes so far.
And given the show’s terrifically charismatic performances (particularly from Knightley and Whishaw), sparkling comedic dialogue, tense action set pieces and fun world-building – it is no surprise that Black Doves is proving a hit with both audiences and critics.
Not only has it a near-perfect 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, but only one or two days after its release, it’s already climbing up the Netflix TV charts.
You can expect it to stay there for a while, as the series’ Christmas setting also makes it an unexpected festive treat that can be particularly enjoyed throughout December.
Here’s a sample of some of the glowing reviews for Black Doves:
Entertainment Weekly: “The spirited Netflix thriller from Joe Barton (The Lazarus Project) is a remarkably fresh, exciting, and laugh-out-loud funny caper, driven by a sharp comedic sensibility and wildly entertaining performances from stars Ben Whishaw and Keira Knightley.”
Inverse: “Black Doves takes the best parts of its native genre and creates something sharp, fresh, and deeply evocative.”
ReadySteadyCut: “Black Doves is just flat-out entertaining. It’s pacey and action-packed and funny and sometimes, at its best, surprisingly poignant, almost in spite of itself.”
RogerEbert.com: “From shootouts to tender admissions of love, Black Doves feels like a revelation in a genre that grows staler by the year.”
Vanity Fair: “On Black Doves, matters of the heart stand toe-to-toe with all the bloody intrigue. Characters’ idiosyncrasies, their pert humour in the face of mortal risk, are charming where so much else in the spies-with-personal-lives mini-genre feels canned.”
Black Doves is streaming in its entirety on Netflix right now.
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