"Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond," on BBC America Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond Nora Horich and Dominic Cooper in this BBC America mini-series, which begins on Wednesday. It focuses on the life of James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, during World War II. To answer your main question first: about 10 minutes. That's how far into Part 1 of "Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond" you have to get before you hear Ian Fleming (Dominic Cooper), after ordering a martini, give the bartender what is now the Western world's most famous three-word instruction on how its ingredients are to be blended. And that's the point at which this four-part series, which begins on Wednesday night on BBC America, will start to be of interest to admirers of Fleming and his literary creation James Bond. The mini-series is a chronicle of how Fleming spent the World War II years, but Bond is a sort of ghost character throughout, teasing fans of the books and movies. "See the parallels?" you can almost hear him saying (in the voice of whatever actor is your favorite film Bond). The parlor game that Ghost Bond invites you to play - "which real person became which character in the books," and so on - hides the more interesting suggestion, which is that Fleming, at least as rendered here, seems to have been a rather unpleasant man, callous and abusive toward women and unfazed about costing people their lives. The mini-series carries a disclaimer ("Some names, places and incidents are fictitious and have been changed for dramatic effect"), so it's impossible to gauge the accuracy of the portrait. But if it's even somewhat true to life, the comparison is really a contrast. Bond, at least the one of the movies, calls to mind words like "suave" and "rakish." Fleming, who died in 1964, may have had Bond-like experiences, but he's no one you can root for. The series concentrates on his years working for the director of British naval intelligence during the war, before he had started writing, a post that led him into espionage escapades and other adventures. All the while, he was obsessed with Ann O'Neill (Lara Pulver), who was not only married but also already having an affair with someone else. But that obsession didn't keep him from other dalliances. Women, to this version of Fleming, were a disposable commodity. The mini-series and its characters are all over the map, stylistically, seeming unable to find the right tone for the time period. Sometimes a Jazz Age decadence is in the air, sometimes a noir gloom. Tense scenes worthy of a Bond film alternate with ridiculous, heavy-breathing lovemaking, generally between Fleming and Lady Ann, that seems borrowed from a frat house comedy. Mr. Cooper doesn't have the commanding presence necessary to anchor a four-parter or the combination of charm and gravitas needed to make Fleming as intriguing as he probably was. At one point, Fleming tells his boss he wants to start an espionage unit. "Who's going to run this unit?" he is asked. Will it keep you out of trouble? Almost certainly not. Coming from Bond, that would have been cheekily endearing. Here, it just makes you want to give both Fleming and Mr. Cooper a smack upside the head for being annoying.