BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- It isn't set in Britain. It wasn't made in Britain.
But the new AMC series Rubicon, which debuts Sunday, has more of a British "feel" to it than any recent American TV show we've seen.
In that sense, Rubicon may end up appealing more to Canadians -- at least the ones who watch a British drama or mystery from time to time -- than Americans.
The larger American audience probably will find Rubicon a little slow. Initially we did as well. But admittedly, by the end of the two-hour premiere, we were pretty curious about just what the heck was going on.
Give credit to AMC: They don't tend to dumb it down, for better or for worse.
Since AMC -- American Movie Classics -- ventured into creating its own TV programming, it has presented four projects.
First came Mad Men. Then came Breaking Bad. Everybody has their own likes and dislikes, but to us, those are the best two shows on TV.
Then AMC aired the mini-series The Prisoner, which was a remake of a trippy and somewhat incomprehensible 1960s mini-series. The new one was ambitious, but disappointing overall.
Which brings us to Rubicon, a modern-day political-conspiracy story that stars James Badge Dale. You may recall Dale from his roles in 24 and The Pacific, but in Rubicon we can't decide if Dale looks more like a young John McEnroe or a young Bob Dylan.
Anyway, Dale plays Will Travers, a brilliant but beleaguered analyst at a New York-based intelligence agency called the American Policy Institute.
The agency employs people who have code-cracking abilities akin to the ones presented in the Russell Crowe movie A Beautiful Mind. But rather than being married to super-supportive Jennifer Connelly, the brainiacs at API lead a lonely existence, as they can't even tell their loved ones what they really do.
As one of Will's co-workers says with resignation, "I tell my kids I write secret videogames. They think that's pretty cool."
As for Will, he's particularly sullen, as he's still recovering emotionally from a devastating family incident that occurred several years ago. When someone asks him if he has any birthday plans, he says, "Count the minutes till it's over."
This guy is a real barrel of laughs.
Rubicon's wider plot starts to kick in when another tragic incident leads to Will getting a promotion he was not seeking.
Rather than walk away from API, which is his first instinct, Will takes the job. He does so partially out of respect for the victim of the tragedy, but also because he has started to uncover something that perhaps certain people within his own organization don't want him to uncover.
Will begins to believe those two elements -- the tragedy and the mystery -- are related somehow.
A female co-worker tries to talk Will off that dangerous ledge by saying, "Maybe there is no why."
Will's response: "There's always a why. We just don't understand it."
Hmmm. The same could be said about the success and failure of certain TV shows, could it not?
We liked Rubicon, it drew us in after a while, and we're willing to stick with it for a spell.
As for the TV masses, we'll see if Rubicon's low-tech, cerebral approach raises eyebrows or shuts them.
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