I do love a financial thriller. It’s such a palate-cleanser, given a television diet composed mostly of the psychological kind. Our screens are full of people working from hidden, emotional motives that must be carefully developed and depicted, enacting revenges, delivering bespoke justice for crimes old and new that have struck at the heart of their families, bereaved them or otherwise made the protagonist’s life an inescapable misery. You are asked to engage, identify and feel along with them. You need a break, after a while.
A financial thriller, by contrast, is a rejuvenating thing, the small-screen equivalent of one of Bertie Wooster’s “liveners”. Why are all these people doing whatever it is they’re doing? Money! Why is that man dead? He had money! Or he was stopping the other people getting more money! What are they doing with all those computers? Getting money! Why do they want the money? Because they want money! All it has to do is keep these kinds of questions – and the single answer – coming until the story ends and the money ends up with the right people. Or doesn’t. Who cares? It’s just money and that’s the joy of the thing.
