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When fanatical terrorist Omair Idrisi escapes from Syrian authorities with plans to launch an unprecedented attack that could change the face of modern warfare, the ensuing manhunt can only be entrusted to counterterrorism’s best and brightest. Enter Section 20 — the elite, multinational, covert special ops team tasked with tracking down Idrisi and his British co-conspirator wife, Jane Lowry.
I have to confess, I hadn’t seen one episode of any of the previous installments in this series. And that might have worked to my benefit as season five starts anew, with fresh faces making up Section 20, a secretive branch of the British Defence Intelligence service. After watching season five, I will most definitely watch seasons 1-4 but because season five is a new beginning, with new characters and storylines, it was probably the best starting point for me, save season one.
This time around, we have Sergeant Daniel ‘Mac’ McAllister (Warren Brown), Sergeant Samuel Wyatt (Daniel MacPherson), Lance Corporal Gracie Novan (Alin Sumarwatta) and Captain Natalie Reynolds (Roxanne McKee). While Daniel is in the middle of a mission where he and his team are to pick up terrorist Omair Idrisi (Don Hany) from his Syrian captors, Idrisi’s men are somehow informed of the exchange and they open fire on everyone. Daniel is the only survivor and when he returns to base, he punches his superior officer for not getting the intel right, at the cost of his men. Awaiting a court-martial, he is recruited by Col. Adeena Donovan (Nina Sosanya), who works for MI6 and who has just re-established the disbanded “Section 20” unit.
Samuel Wyatt, an American operator, has been captured by a Libyan general and Daniel is handed the mission of breaking him out. After doing so, both men team up with Lance Corporal Gracie Novan and Captain Natalie Reynolds under direct command from Adeena Donovan. When she informs them that their mission is to track down and capture Omair Idrisi, the man responsible for the deaths of all of Daniel’s men, they are more than eager to participate. Their mission takes them around the globe to Tripoli, Budapest, Belarus, and Croatia as they try to capture Idrisi and his English wife, Jane Lowry (Katherine Kelly). When it appears that Idrisi was killed in a bomb attack, Section 20 realizes that his wife Jane is just as fanatical and dangerous as he was, and it quickly comes to light that she is planning to unleash Novichok, a new deadly chemical weapon in a crowded place in Minsk. When they manage to thwart the attack, Jane holds hostage Dr. Kamil Markov (Daniel Cerqueira), the man responsible for creating Novichok and has him create more of it.
When Section 20 attack a warehouse where Markov is working on his weapon, he is killed in the process and accidentally releases a small amount of Novichok, infecting Natalie. Jane manages to escape but when she receives a phone call from an anonymous source, claiming that her husband is still alive, she takes steps to reunite with him and together, unleash hell on earth. Now Section 20 must bring their “A” game if they are to prevent a new breed of chemical warfare that could wipe out half the planet’s population.
The one great thing about watching a TV show in its entirety is not having commercial breaks. With Blu-ray, you can just sit and watch the entire season with no stops and enjoy it more as a result. As I stated earlier, I haven’t seen any other season of “Strike Back” but the overall structure seems to follow the likes of other similar-themed shows that have come before it, namely “24,” starring Kiefer Sutherland. I think Jack Bauer would make a great addition to Section 20 but the show, well, at least this season, does a great job in creating realistic characters and story arcs, offering plenty of bad guys, and cliffhangers galore. While I have enjoyed the new iteration of “MacGyver,” while some of the episodes are “supposed” to take place in various exotic locations, you can tell it was shot in California, or somewhere domestically. With “Strike Back,” the show dares to go on location so when you see our heroes giving chase to the villains through the streets of Minsk, it’s real and adds another layer of authenticity that most other shows on TV fail to offer. Here’s to catching up with the show’s earlier seasons.
Available on Blu-ray & DVD August 14th
