The Sentinels review – This thrilling drama about super-soldiers proves television can be done differently | television

TAlternate history has long been a mainstay of television, be it For All Mankind (what if the Soviets won the Space Race?), The Man in the High Castle (what if the Axis powers won World War II?) or even Blackadder (what if Tudor history was basically nonsense?). The Sentinels enters this crowded genre, often filled with conflict, with its own wartime premise: What if, during World War I, the French army had groomed a secret cabal of drugged super-soldiers, capable of incredible acts of violence?

An unusual mix of post-apocalyptic action, steampunk action and period war drama with a distinct Gallic (and Germanic) flair, this eight-part series – adapted from the novel Comic book series by Enrique Brescia and Xavier Dorison – is an interesting entry into the “what if?” Type. And if that sounds a bit over the top (a bad historical event plus major anachronisms equals… TV gold?!), know that The Sentinels is so confident in its worldbuilding that it manages to work not only as an alternate history, but also as a sci-fi thriller.

Our reserved hero is Gabriel Feraud (Luis Pérez), a half-dead fighter with angry father issues, plucked from the battlefield in 1915 and sent to a top-secret research laboratory. There, he is injected with a serum in a risky experiment that quickly causes an epileptic seizure. But that’s the least of the French’s problems – the Germans launch an attack with the aim of getting their hands on their enemies’ research, killing one of the masterminds of the Sentinels program in the process. (Naturally, we later find out that there was more to this initial killing than the audience—or the main characters—could have known.) Gabriel is desperate to reunite with his wife, Irene (Olivia Ross), and their infant son, but he is essentially a prisoner in the Sentinels program: If he babbles about the experiment or rebels in any way, he’ll be labeled a fugitive. Oh, and the serum makes his cells mutate, worrying Dr. Martha (Pauline Etienne). “Losing control is normal at first,” his new army buddies tell Gabrielle — which is what you want to hear when you get high on an experimental drug against your will.

While most of the action revolves around Gabriel – played by Perez with a mixture of toughness and anxiety – there are plenty of side plots as well. Journalist Irene tries to find out what happened to her husband, and why Colonel Mirio (Noam Morgenstern) is saving information about soldiers who died in battle. Her world collides with that of Chopped nightclub owner, the Baron (Wassini Mubarak), who is embroiled in his own dodgy war-related dealings. Martha – a clever cog in the French machine who clearly has some reservations about her employers – wonders what Mirio and her friends were doing before the Sentinels, in a perhaps more secretive introduction to Project Atlas.

It could be everything United Nations Bio TropYet The Sentinels pull it off. It’s good that it builds a sense of suspense while also – crucially – providing answers to some of the questions it raises, rather than falling into the sci-fi trap of a mystery box that becomes increasingly vague and frustrating. The BBC press release refers to a “Frankensteinian level of depth and empathy”, which seems a bit bombastic at first but makes sense as the series develops. It is, ultimately, a story about two wars unfolding simultaneously: World War I, sure, but also the war being waged inside Gabriel’s body, as he submits to a drug he took under duress that is causing him increasing levels of mental distress. It’s not always subtle (“Je suis dangereux,” he announces at one point), but there’s a Shelley-like moral angle that lingers. Not least when Martha was also tasked with performing an experiment on a woman sentenced to death.

The Sentinels has its drawbacks. Sci-fi tropes abound, and sometimes the shoot-’em-up scenes can feel more like sitting through video game cut scenes than watching a TV drama. But it’s still exciting and propulsive, and proof that not everything on TV these days has to be drawn from the same old franchises and threadbare intellectual property. The series ends with a brutal final scene that ensures a second round, which deflects the temptation of an elegant, happy conclusion to Gabriel’s tale. After all, alternative histories may play with the horrors of the past, but they do not always trump reality.