Some of the best TV series of this century are brilliantly rendered but nevertheless clearly of the small screen, as with a “Ted Lasso” or a “Veep” or a “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” while others are more obviously cinematic in nature, e.g., “Band of Brothers,” “Game of Thrones” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
” Of course it’s about the budget, but it’s also about the scope and parameters of the story arcs. From Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne as the titular character to the gorgeous and expansive location shoots in London, Budapest, Vienna and Croatia to the major action set pieces, the Peacock series “The Day of the Jackal” is clearly in the latter category. Clichéd as it might be to say this, each of the 10 chapters is more like a movie than an episode of television.
This is the third major adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s bestselling 1971 novel, following the classic 1973 film directed by the great Fred Zinnemann of “High Noon” and “From Here to Eternity” fame and the disappointing and very loose take from 1997 starring Richard Gere and Bruce Willis. In this British production created by the Irish writer Ronan Bennett, we hit the ground running with a spectacularly executed premiere episode that plunges us into the lives of the two main characters: the near-mythological assassin who will come to be known as Jackal (Redmayne), and a tenacious, weapons-expert British intelligence officer named Bianca Pullman (Lashana.