The ITV thriller Red Eye has landed on Hulu, and anyone who’s a connoisseur of British TV will check it out, because of the presence of Richard Armitage. But anyone who’s seen a lot of British TV will feel like they’ve seen this one before, despite all attempts to convince viewers otherwise.

Red Eye is very similar to Burn Up, the 2008 BBC miniseries starring Armitage’s Spooks colleague Rupert Penry-Jones. Burn Up was a serviceable thriller, but it was very clearly constructed to make a political point, resulting in a heavy-handed story while Penry-Jones and The Handmaid’s Tale star Bradley Whitford were the only ones generating any entertainment. In Red Eye, the international drama and political scheming surrounds nuclear power, and Armitage is the one actor pushing the series forward at all costs.

The fan-favorite star is in his element as Dr. Matthew Nolan, a surgeon attending a medical conference in China—only to find himself accused of the murder of a Chinese general’s daughter. The very first scene is a classic Armitage moment, as Nolan escapes from a Chinese nightclub and barely gets away in a car, before wrecking the vehicle. Between Spooks, Berlin Station and even playing a short-lived villain in Captain America: The First Avenger, Armitage is an expert at the conspiracy thriller game. He infuses every scene he’s in with the right amount of desperate, angry energy and physically commands the screen, even when Nolan is handcuffed and seemingly subdued.

Unfortunately, almost everyone else around him feels like they’re just checking off the character-type boxes for this genre. Jing Lusi (Gangs of London) portrays Detective Constable Hana Li, who’s responsible for escorting Nolan on the flight that gives the show its name, and she’s the only actor other than Armitage with an engaging personality. The actors tasked with playing government figureheads and conspiracy drones are cryptic and dry, and it’s obvious that they’re going along with something. But in a thriller, the word “obvious” is a giant red flag.

The majority of Red Eye‘s action takes place on the plane, which creator Peter A. Dowling is familiar with, as he also wrote the Jodie Foster movie Flightplan. But audiences are also familiar with it (just in recent memory, the Josh Hartnett-led Fight or Flight was likewise set almost entirely on a plane). That concept doesn’t make up for the relative lack of character development. There’s an attempt made to delve into Hana’s backstory, including a strained relationship with her journalist sister, yet the narrative doesn’t leave a ton of room for it.

Red Eye is smart in landing the plane before the final shot of the season, so that audiences get to see the full fallout of everyone’s actions. The explanation is a little convoluted, even for a conspiracy thriller, but Dowling deserves credit for giving one. And Richard Armitage is in fine form as he always is; every time he appears on screen, the viewer sits up and pays attention. Audiences want to see Nolan fight his way out of this unjust situation, and it’s a lot of fun to watch Armitage make that happen (not just physically, but in how he’s still able to convey Nolan’s emotional swings while doing so). Red Eye is worth watching just for Armitage; it’s a shame that the rest of the show doesn’t reach his level.

Red Eye is now streaming on Hulu. A second series is in development. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hulu.

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