Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Control Room’ On BritBox, Where An Emergency Dispatcher Compromises Himself Trying To Help An Old Friend

The three-part thriller is a staple of British TV. But it’s not always apparent if the story in the brief series can sustain three episodes. A new three-parter that aired on BBC One over the summer certainly has an interesting idea at its center. But does it have enough story to sustain its runtime?

THE CONTROL ROOM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man wearing a headset tensely rubs his hands together while he asks the person on the other end of the phone if someone is breathing.

The Gist: Gabe (Iain De Caestecker) is a call handler for the Scottish Ambulance Service in Glasgow. He’s the equivalent of a 911 dispatcher, here in the States, and he’s shown leading callers through tense moments like when they find a loved one unconscious, and joyous moments, like when a couple has a baby while on the phone with him.

But then he gets a call from a woman who is screaming that she just killed her husband. She’s not giving any information, but then she says, “Gabo, is that you?” Because of the name he’s called, he immediately knows who it is, but doesn’t let on to his colleagues, including shift supervisor Leigh (Taj Atwal), with whom he’s struck up a personal relationship outside the office.

He’s looking for Samantha Tomey (Joanna Vanderham), his childhood best friend and girlfriend; he knows it’s her because the only ones who called him “Gabo” were her and his mother, who passed from cancer when he was a kid. He goes back to the countryside home where his father Ian (Stuart Bowman) lives; Ian gets angry at the mere mention of Sam’s name. A visit to a pub run by Eldith (Charlene Boyd), one of his and Sam’s friends, ends up with her massive husband Robbo (Daniel Cahill)B threatening Gabe’s life. It’s pretty obvious that Sam caused a lot of trouble for Gabe and his friends and family, given the reaction he’s getting by even uttering her name.

She calls again the next day, talking about how her husband gave her “two years of hell.” He pretends to be sick and leaves, but not before giving her a clue of where to meet him. They meet at the burned out hull of the cabin where they used to hang out as kids. She’s desperate; her husband’s body is in the back of a van in a Glasgow parking garage, and she wants Gabe to move it for her. He at first says no, but then, remembering their old bond, finds her in the woods and says yes.

That operation goes less than smoothly, and he’s almost spotted by Breck (Sharon Rooney), the police detective investigating the case. But then, as he’s questioned by Breck at the office the next day, his smarmy colleague Anthony (Daniel Portman) finds out something about Gabe that he can use to his advantage.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because of the emergency services connection, an inevitable connection to 9-1-1 comes up. But The Control Room is more tense thriller than the crazy cases-of-the-week format of the Ryan Murphy series and its spinoffs.

Our Take: Written by Nick Leather, The Control Room is a thriller in more than one way. Of course, there’s the action on screen, where Gabe is basically ruining his life to protect Sam, whom he essentially ruined his life to protect a couple of decades ago, but for whom he has some flicker of affection. But the other thrilling aspect of the series is to see if Leather, in conjunction with director Amy Neil, can sustain the tension in this story over three hour-long episodes.

While that tension is maintained well in the first episode, there are still signs that there isn’t quite enough story there to keep things up for 3 hours. Much of what went on between Gabe and Sam is told via flashbacks, ones that purposely go back and forth and dole out their childhood story in pieces. For instance, the fire at the cabin was a huge moment in Gabe’s life, but we’re not really clued into why or how it started. We have no real idea how deep the relationship between him and Sam got and for how long.

Sure, the idea seems to be that we’re getting these fragments of memories because this is what Gabe is thinking of as Sam reenters his life and he ends up doing things he’d never consider doing for anyone else. But the long, dreamy flashbacks break the momentum of the present-day thriller that’s the main push of the series.

It would seem to have been more than enough to make a 90-to-105-minute movie where this good man who is saving lives is making blunders for this woman who has a hold over him, and being so sloppy that co-workers and family members find out he’s helping her. De Caestecker effectively show’s Gabe’s obvious discomfort with what Sam wants him to do, but we also see his powerlessness in her presence. Vanderham is good at projecting Sam’s helplessness, which may be real or may be an act. Their back-and-forth is the key to this series.

But a 3-hour runtime means that we’ll see more flashbacks, and will be forced to piece together their backstory when most of that could have been explained in a couple of lines of exposition. And while that’s not a series killer, it sure feels like something that could have been avoided.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: On the roof of the building where they work, Anthony says he’ll stay quiet about what he knows if Gabe can get him out of some debt-induced trouble. Thinking of his past with Sam, Gabe tightens his grip on the railing.

Sleeper Star: Throwing out the idea that Gabe and Leigh had a fling is a detail that we hope pays off later on, so we’ll be looking for Taj Atwal a little more in the other two episodes.

Most Pilot-y Line: When his dad gets angry at him for mentioning Sam, Gabe snaps at him. “How long has it been, huh? And you can’t even switch the TV off.” We’re supposed to assume that line is about his mother’s death? About what Sam did? About the general closed-off nature of Scottish fathers? We’re not sure.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Viewers will be drawn into the main story in The Control Room. We hope, however, they’re not distracted by the piecemeal flashbacks that build the characters’ backstories.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.