The Bombing of Pan Am 103 TV review — BBC-Netflix drama retraces the Lockerbie investigation

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For the second time this year, a TV drama takes us back to that night in December 1988 when an aeroplane bound for the US exploded in mid-air over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all on board.

In January, the Sky/Peacock mini-series Lockerbie: A Search For Truth told the story of Jim Swire: a bereaved father who has led a committed yet contentious campaign for justice in the decades since the tragedy. Now a six-part BBC-Netflix co-production, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, chronicles the joint — if frequently fraught — transatlantic efforts by Scottish police and American security agencies to find those responsible for the UK’s deadliest terror attack.

There is, of course, a certain amount of overlap between the two shows — especially in first episodes that depict the devastation in a town-turned-hellscape. But where Lockerbie was driven by Swire’s emotional journey, this series is focused on the process of building a case.

If procedural approach can feel pedestrian at times, it is partly justified by the logistical and geopolitical complexity of the catastrophe. Not only is evidence scattered across an 850 square mile crime scene, with possible leads later pursued in Germany, Jordan and Malta, but the two authorities conducting the investigation are separated by an ocean and divided on who gets to call the shots.

As the case veers and sprawls before arriving at the 2001 trial and conviction of Libyan national Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the drama remains centred on a handful of key figures. In Lockerbie, detective sergeant Ed McCusker (Connor Swindells) sifts through the debris in search of answers and tries to provide solace for a local boy orphaned by falling wreckage. Over in Washington, FBI special agent Dick Marquise (Patrick J Adams) has to win the trust of the head of the Scottish operation (Peter Mullan) and handle the CIA, whose own interests might be at odds with those of the Pan Am case.

While the show considers the effect on investigators from being immersed for years in the horrors of the bombing, those who lost loved ones or who saw their town burn can seem peripheral. The American families’ calls for justice are largely filtered through the perspective of Kathryn Turman (Merritt Wever) — then a special assistant to US Senator John Heinz — who took it upon herself to liaise with the victims and lobby on their behalf when no one else would.

“The families should have been prioritised from the start,” she notes in the show’s final scene. A similar point could be made about a well-intentioned series that doesn’t always find the right balance between the historic investigation and the human tragedy.

★★★☆☆

Episodes 1 & 2 on BBC1 on May 18-19 at 9pm. New episodes released weekly on Sundays and Mondays and available to stream on iPlayer. On Netflix globally at a later date