Harry Wise gives a cutting verdict to what some viewers are calling the British Homeland.

When BP had one of their drilling rigs erupt in the Gulf of Mexico a couple of years back, environmentalists, the President of the USA and local businessmen united in anger at the incompetence of the oil giant. It was just one of the many disasters to hit the oil industry in the previous decades.

You only have to look at the dramatic portrayal of the oil industry in fictional format to know how much it’s maligned. On screen, oil is a dirty, over-profitable, over-powerful industry; an economic hostage-taker and political puppet-master.

It is also the focus of Secret State, Channel 4’s new political drama, starring Gabriel Byrne. When an oil refinery blows up, killing nineteen people in a Teeside town, Petrofex, the American oil company, is held responsible. But greater disaster erupts when the Prime Minister’s plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. A plane which just happens to be owned by Petrofex, and out of the catastrophe Byrne emerges as Tom Dawkins, becoming the intermin leader as Deputy PM. Think Nick Clegg, with a spine.

Secret State’s four-part series is based on former MP Chris Mullin’s novel, A Very British Coup in which a left-wing Prime Minister finds that his plans for radical reform are being thwarted by many figures in the British establishment.

Although Secret State does sway largely from the novel, the cream of conspiracy remains; head to head go business and security service. Counter-intelligence officials at GCHQ fight the intellectual acuity of the show, while a journalist in a long coat (Gina McKee) pops up in the middle of the Prime Minister’s morning run opposite Parliament to deliver him valuable information about the Scarrow incident.

Is this a new State of Play? Wasn’t it enough for the BBC to attempt a series that was instantly unforgettable, despite being made into a film with Russell Crowe? Unfortunately, Channel 4’s attempt isn’t worth remembering either. It lacks any of the paranoia that is usually the meat of these conspiracy thrillers, and lack of complexity allows it to fall short of Spooks.

We can all believe a big bad petrochemical is trying to usurp the power of an elected British government, but Secret State’s pretentiousness kills its spirit. Gabriel Byrne’s portrayal of a Prime Minister is remarkably relaxed, and his inability to show emotion really does mar the series. He floats dream-like through the series with absentmindedness which deserves a Freudian analysis by a Harley Street psychiatrist. Comparison with Homeland is still quite a way off.

Secret State is on Channel 4 on Wednesday at 10pm.