Sleeper Cell

I happened to catch the first episode of the drama Sleeper Cell, while flipping through the channels and got hooked in 15 minutes. Its the story of an American Muslim working for the FBI going undercover and joining a Muslim terrorist organization that is hell bent on bringing chaos and terror to America.

What makes a drama tick is making the viewers involved with the characters. One must feel for the people in the story or else it just becomes a bunch of people on TV. The show gives adequate information about the main character, Darwyn Al-Hakim and his reason for going undercover. Oded, who plays the leader of the cell, gives a very chilling ice-down-the-spine performance. the rest of the team members are all non-Arabs and they have a reason to be here, or at least one of them have. They make you feel for these people at the same time make you feel bad that you are actually feeling sorry for the bad guys. THats what is called drama.

I'll have to now soon get this on DVD for my collection because i feel that this is going to be one of those really good TV series that are too short but worth it, like Band of Brothers.

I read the first comment with interest and confusion. I find this series to be incredibly good. So much so that it is difficult to watch because of the feelings, mostly of fear, that it generates. Michael Ealy, as Darwyn, is performing fabulously. You can see and feel the conflict and stress his character faces as an undercover agent with the sole responsibility to uncover and prevent a major terrorist event.

And Oden Fehr as the cell leader is downright frightening. He's extremely good looking, charming and very easily fits into 'Anywhere' America. His cold blooded anything for the cause attitude is so scary.

What's the most frightening is that this cell isn't comprised of 'obvious' enemies. Probably very much like real life. We can only hope there are really a few Darwyn's out there as well.

I'm hooked!

I watched Sleeper Cell with a bit of trepidation worrying over whether the terrorists would be glorified. This mesmerizing series not only handled the subject matter responsibly, it created depth and substance to almost every character. Oded Fehr just gobbles up the screen in every scene he's in—and even though his character is the charismatic leader of a jihad terrorist cell, he still has hypnotic appeal. Michael Ealy held his own well, though in some scenes I wondered why he wasn't shot on the spot because of the scowl he wore on his face.

The pros of the series are the two leads, Fehr and Ealy, the well written characters--all of which were believable and tragic, and the disconcerting issues addressed in the story. Having been married to a Muslim myself, the atmosphere created was quite realistic. The cons, for me personally, were that the female T&A was overkill—most seemed gratuitous, as well as some of the sex scenes. Despite that, it is a raw gripping series that will make you think. Somebody give Fehr more juicy roles like this one and let him run with it. He's got incredible screen presence and a strange kind of innate power emanating off him.

The only thing worse than the suspense of this program was the arrival of the closing credits.

The title tells the setting. Saying more would detract and it would be nearly impossible not to be a spoiler as well.

If suspense, plots twists, good acting and believable plots are your cup of tea then you are in for one fine treat.

The casting was perfect, as was, on the whole, the character development. Every performer was very believable in their roles and thus I did not have to be annoyed by the usual weak performer that pulls down the entire performance.

If all television was this good I would become a full time couch potato............pass the sour cream please.

Far more than anything I've watched on TV in a long time, this entire series made me uncomfortable and uneasy. It wasn't just the reality of it, though that was unsettling, especially for someone who lives in the LA area and knows a lot of those locations.

But it was the way I was relating to the characters, especially the members of the cell besides Farik. I would find myself agreeing with some of the things they said, or empathizing with them in some other way -- really, just seeing them as human. The show would start taking me down that path, and then utterly ruthlessly snap me back when those same characters did something to remind me of what they are and what they've become. Each time -- as much as I should have expected it -- it came as a shock.

This is a great series, but overall, watching it was a pretty unsettling experience. It forced me to ask a lot of questions I simply don't have the answers for. And I don't think anyone else does, either. The best comparisons to other material would be to the films Traffic and Syriana, but because of the length (10 hours as compared to 2.5) and the focus on just a few characters, the emotional investment in this story was a lot greater.

In terms of what to expect, this is not an easy to digest, fast-paced show -- I think the analogies to 24 are off-base in that respect. Yeah, it has to do with terrorism -- so do Victory at Entebbe and Executive Decision -- but really, it doesn't have much in common with movies and TV shows in that genre. The spiritual roots of this series are in material like Wiseguy (to which there's a nice tip of the hat in episode 5), or Donnie Brasco, about the experience of an undercover agent. If you are expecting lots of things going boom -- well, this might not be what you're looking for.

The performances are top-notch, especially Michael Ealy and Oded Fehr. The entire series has a sense of realism throughout that keeps the tension strong throughout. Just excellent work all around, and Showtime deserves serious kudos for upping the quality of its original offerings with a series like this.