Slick, ambitious thriller spins a world-wide web of terror

Television without borders demands a high level of attention. The complex web of characters in new thriller The Grid (TV3, tonight, 8.30pm) took a solid hour of introductions in the six-parter's debut episode last week.

Even with the snappy freeze-frame subtitles giving us the key players' names and roles, it's going to take commitment to sort out who's who in the counterterrorist zoo.

The drama dips into the genre of post-September 11, grief TV. In a strange case of deja vu last week, two leads in different dramas gave their World Trade Centre survivor credentials using almost identical lines: The Grid's Max Canary (Dylan McDermott) mourned the death of his best friend in the Twin Towers' disaster who left only a leg to be buried; in Rescue Me NYFD tough guy (Denis Leary) told us his cousin died in the collapse and his remains amounted to a finger.

However, The Grid is far more ambitious than the firefighter drama. It looks at the war on terror from both sides, following a cell of Saudi Arabian-Egyptian-Chechen terrorists and the agencies trying to track them down after a bungled Sarin gas attack in London.

The drama's strongest point is its sophisticated layering of conflicting loyalties. The fight is not just between the protectors of the Western World and those who want to destroy it. The good guys from a plethora of British and American intelligence agencies are too busy squabbling among themselves to look like they have a prayer of foiling a major international terrorist plot.

MI6's Emily Tuthill (Jemma Redgrave) looks like she could stop the world with one of her frigid sneers alone.

The terrorists are more than Middle Eastern villains from central casting and the show is an accurate reflection of what a mix'n'match business global terrorism actually is.

One of the American intelligence agents is a devout Muslim; one of the terrorists is a second-generation United States citizen.

So far, so promising. But The Grid is hampered by a script with lines as unwieldy as its cast of thousands. The most earnest of them are as heavy-going as a camel trek across the Saudi desert: "Islam inspired a humane civilisation and made some great contributions to mankind," one agent lectures.

The drama could strain transatlantic relations in more fields than intelligence-sharing. The American leads are attractive and have sizzling sex lives. Julianna Margulies' Maren Jackson is the kind of fantasy figure who can rustle up the inside gen on al Qaeda cells and still project a weapons-grade sexuality. Dylan McDermott's Max drools over thoughts of his attractive wife naked in the shower. Their British counterparts are about as stylish and hot as used teabags.

Despite these failings, The Grid is probably going to be worth the effort. Hopefully by tonight's second instalment the introductions will all be over, the script will have left off the lectures explaining Islam to Mr and Mrs Average American and get on with its many plots.

After the lurid stereotypes and sustained hysteria of real-time terrorist thriller 24, for example, a more challenging effort in the field is certainly welcome.