Babylon review, ep 1, Channel 4: 'problematic' When a much-hyped pilot for Babylon (Channel 4) aired in February, the reviews were less than ecstatic. This quick-fire comedy drama about the public-relations obsessed folk at the top of the police hierarchy in London (and the sometimes less than savvy officers who "represent the brand" at the sharp end), directed by Danny Boyle and written by Peep Show's Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, was seen as an uneasy mixture of high-concept political satire and bathetic cop comedy. Still, Channel 4 commissioned a six-part series, and last night's opener served up more of the same problematic blend. In some ways it felt like a straight rerun of what had gone before, with a prison riot media crisis taking the place of the lone-assassin media crisis that had underpinned the pilot. Here too, press containment, one-upmanship and buck-passing seemed the chief concerns of the top brass led by poker-faced, foul-mouthed Commissioner Richard Miller (James Nesbitt), whose immediate priority was not public safety but to make sure that the private company running the prison facility - and the pro-privatisation mayor's office - got the blame for allowing the situation to escalate. So far so topical. The heated interface between public and private service provision gave lots of opportunities for razor-sharp satirical sniping and backbiting, but little in the way of laughs. Once again American star Brit Marling looked suitably all at sea as Liz Garvey, the US digital communications guru drafted in to run Miller's PR unit according to her modern day mantra of "truth, transparency and 360-degree communication" - an all-too-absurdly impossible ambition in the backstabbing political and media whirl of the Met. But absurd as this situation was, and as sparklingly scatological as the dialogue often was - especially between Garvey and her hated shark-like sidekick Finn (Bertie Carvel) - the results were not consistently funny. The writers" efforts to widen the series focus to cover the attitudes of officers on the ground were hardly more successful and worthier storylines concerning characters like trigger-happy dunderhead Robbie (Adam Deacon) and traumatised firearms officer Warwick (Nick Blood) were so completely at odds with their slick superiors, they seemed like visitors from other shows entirely. Certainly Babylon had panache and strong performances. Its biggest problem, though, was that however entertaining such inward-looking intra-institutional, jargon-laced, wonk comedy may be in the context of spin-obsessed politicians (The Thick of It), Olympics organisers (2012) the BBC (W1A), it just doesn't sit comfortably where the harsh realities of policing are involved, when people get beaten up or shot every time a senior officer dithers over "perception." Of course, in a sense, that's the point but it's not one very likely to make you want to laugh.