Propaganda watch: 'Threat Matrix'
Excerpted from TV Tome's episode guide for Threat Matrix, the new Homeland Security propaganda series on ABC:
1. Pilot (18-Sep-2003)
A prisoner who is requesting asylum in the United States tells the government that there is a shipping container in which a group of terrorists is hiding, and that it is on its way to the U.S.
Frankie is sent to Jarkarta to question the one man who might know if the government has been told the truth, and so, to find out exactly where the container is headed. Frankie gets the job done, but before she can get out of the country, she gets wounded and then caught.
With the "Threat Matrix" team, from their headquarters (the "Vault") at Fort Meade, John Kilmer (the head of the "Threat Matrix" team *and* Frankie's ex-husband) works to find the answers they need to be able to neutralize the terrorist threat, even though doing that means that he has to leave Frankie to whatever fate awaits her until his primary job is done.
2. Veteran's Day (25-Sep-2003)
When a homicide detective becomes the victim of a terrorist car bomb, the Homeland Security team fears that a similar event is going to take place at a Veteran's Day parade that is planned for Washington, DC.
Their investigation unearths the fact that a military munitions officer has been selling C-4 to terrorists and that the terrorists have been using money supplied by a Utah drug dealer to make their purchases.
The team puts all of the pieces together in time to stop the terrorists from bombing the parade.
The moral of the episode is that: "We are, ironically, our own worst enemies. Terrorizing ourselves ... Fighting a war of dependency ... that, unfortunately, makes veterans of us all."
3. Doctor Germ (02-Oct-2003 pc: 103)
The Threat Matrix team searches for the infamous Dr. Germ, an Iraqi woman with a deadly knowledge of poison gas and a grudge against the United States Marines.
4. Natural Borne Killers (09-Oct-2003)
The Threat Matrix team track the carriers of the Ebola virus that was brought into Texas by a puppy.
5. In Plane Sight (pc: 105 )
The Threat Matrix squad investigates the seamy side of the West African coast as they struggle to track down a stolen cargo plane filled with nuclear waste.
6. Alpha-126
Considered an enemy combatant, a French-Algerian man is detained at Guantanamo Bay. Because Frankie refuses to allow him to have his medication while she is interrogating him, the man suffers a heart attack and dies.
Whether it was because he was unwilling or unable, the Algerian national never gave Frankie any of the information she was trying to get before he died, and she ends up in a courtroom, pleading "not guilty" to the charge of murder.
7. Under The Gun
A sniper is loose in the city, and the Threat matrix team is trying to profile and locate the killer before he strikes again.
8. Patriot Acts (pc: 102)
A series of university bombings have Kilmer and his team racing the
clock to trace the bomber before he strikes again.
TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS: That this series is ripped-from-the-headlines propaganda glorifying the 'national security' police state is apparent. Interestingly enough, one of the staff writers on the series, John Shiban, was one of the X-Files writer/producers who wrote the pilot episode of spin-off series Lone Gunmen involving a passenger airliner remote-controlled into the World Trade Center. TIA has always been more of the opinion that the LG writing staff was just rather perceptive, not that they were engaging shadowy revelation-of-the-method type hijinks. Shiban's presence on Threat Matrix would seem to undermine this point of view. But, on the other hand, maybe this Shiban wrote something subversive in the "Patriot Acts" episode, which although the second regular episode produced has been pushed back in the airing order.
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