“Berlin Station”, The Search for a C.I.A. Whistleblower

Olen Steinhauer is a successful spy novel writer (his most recent work is “All the Old Knives”) who is currently producing a television series, “Berlin Station,” for the premium cable channel Epix. This appears to be his first significant work, and for a newcomer, it’s more than solid.

“Berlin Station,” which is part of Epix’s first attempt at scripted work (in addition to the politically comedy “Graves”), is a bit chatty, perhaps a bit overdrawn and droning – though many 10-episode series feel that way at first. But the first four episodes keep you on your toes as they uncover details about the CIA’s internal workings in Berlin. (The agency is fighting its own Edward Snowden, here named Thomas Shaw).

For that, Epix can primarily thank a stellar cast that includes Richard Armitage (Thorin in the “Hobbit” films) as an agent sent to Berlin to find Shaw; Michelle Forbes, Leland Orser, Tamlyn Tomita and a much more restrained than typical Rhys Ifans as other spies; and the redoubtable Richard Jenkins as the embattled director of the terminal.

In an interview with the New York Times Book Review, Steinhauer singled out “Tinker Dressmaker Soldier Spy” as his favorite spy story, and the influence of its author, John le Carré, is evident in the program’s focus on national politics as well as the individualities of the station, which looks and feels like a mid-sized office complex. It’s Pop Le Carré, much lighter (you can say shallower) and borders on daily soap in its charming and also domestic complexity. All in all, “Berlin Station” sits on the spectrum of spy series somewhere between the angst and glossiness of “Homeland” and the saccharine avoidance of “Covert Affairs.”

If the mechanics of the spy story get a little too obvious, it helps that the show was filmed in Berlin, which provides a variety of fascinating backdrops. “Berlin Station” also delves into the city’s nocturnal pansexual bacchanalia, using as its ticket the personality of Mr. Ifans, a lounge lizard type with suspicious intentions. And the German personalities, both the spy agency equivalents and the suspected terrorists, contain exotic Euro flavor – one shaggy villain looks like he regularly suffers from the sadness of young Werther.

” Berlin Station,” based on the early episodes, won’t say anything very profound about the real consequences of the war on terrorism – it doesn’t get any deeper than a disillusioned, frightened lament that “under a key there’s another and another and another, a big mess of our own evolution.” It is the television program as a page-turner, if you have room on your dinner table.