Crossfire - Season 1

What do you do when your hotel is attacked? The characters in Crossfire find themselves in this nightmare and each deals with it in their own way. One thing is clear: this event will change the lives of all involved forever.

Today, unfortunately, it is becoming more and more common, mass shootings. These kinds of events are often used in series to tell stories from the side of the perpetrators, police or other social workers. The BBC series Crossfire takes a different tack. This story is not about why the perpetrators committed their act, how it ends with them and how the police intervened. Crossfire is about the victims of this suffering, the survivors who have to learn to live with the traumas of that day.

Who survived and who did not, and what effect does this have on the next of kin?

A luxury holiday complex in Spain is the setting of Crossfire. Staff and guests have no idea what awaits them when shots suddenly sound through the building. The British Jo (Keeley Hawes, Bodyguard), an old policewoman, is in her hotel room. When she hears the shots she puts on her sneakers, not slippers because as she herself said: "I remembered thinking I'm going to have to run". In search of her family and friends, she puts her own life on the line. But can she still save them?

In the first episode we see how the main characters decided to go to their vacation location and how the shooting breaks out. The panic is intense and very realistic. The second episode focuses a little more on the shooters. Their exact motive is not told, but we do get to see how they gained access to the hotel. The third and final episode mainly deals with the aftermath of the shooting. Who survived and who did not, and what effect does this have on the next of kin?

Chinar (Vikash Bhai, Pandora) tries to get two of his sons and one of Jo's children to safety while Jo's adult daughter Amara (Shalisha James-Davis) is on her own. Ben (Daniel Ryan, Cold Call) meanwhile takes care of the other two children of the group of friends, while his wife takes care of the injured in the hotel. All characters take a different approach and no character turns out to be perfect. It becomes clear that Jo's husband Jason (Lee Ingleby, The Five) is anything but brave and Jo himself turns out to be carrying a big secret.



Everyone reacts differently in a panic situation. Where one tries to help others, the other hides in a corner hoping not to be seen. Due to the strong acting, all these reactions are believable and you can empathize with all the characters from the first moment. Some stupid decisions are sometimes made, but this is also part of extreme stress. However, all the characters will experience the consequences of this.

As a viewer you are really taken into the individual stories during all the frightening moments in the hotel.

The hotel staff is played by Spanish actors and their dialogues are also in Spanish. Because of these kinds of small details, as a viewer you really imagine yourself in Spain during the scenes that take place there. As I said, Crossfire is all about the victims. It is special to notice that at the end you still do not know exactly what the motives were, but the end still feels like an end. The series can rightly be called a miniseries with only three episodes in total of about an hour each. Still, it feels like a full season because of everything that happens.

As a viewer you are really taken into the individual stories during all the frightening moments in the hotel. This sometimes makes it seem like everything is happening in real time. I also think the level is very high for a series that has to tell the whole story in so few episodes. It was nice to see that the series was not predictable. No one was safe, which made it quite surprising. Moreover, the emotional moments at home on the couch could be felt. I am therefore very positive about Crossfire. The trailer caught my interest, but the story itself impressed me at least as much. If you're looking for a short miniseries with drama, suspense and action, I can definitely recommend Crossfire.