Shay-Lee Keren Sharvit, Rotem Sela and Libi Atia of 'Red Alert.' Green Productions, Bender Brown Productions, Keshet 12, the IEF, & Paramount+ Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text When it comes to scripted storytelling about unfathomable tragedy, immediacy is rarely an asset. It's different for documentaries - immediacy and urgency can sometimes be the entire point - but narrative features or series about tragic events usually require the passage of some time to allow for perspective and development. Even then, I'm not sure if there's a defining piece of scripted media about 9/11 some 24 years later, while I can easily point to 15 or 20 movies and TV shows that tried to tackle 9/11 sooner and failed miserably. Related Stories Business Shannon Buck Joins Paramount as Head of Comms for Direct to Consumer TV Paramount+ Lands Nicole Kidman-Elle Fanning Drama 'Discretion' Red Alert The Bottom Line Calculated, but intense and focused. Airdate: Tuesday, October 7 (Paramount+)Cast: Rotem Sela, Israel Atias, Miki Leon, Hisham Sulliman, Chen Amsalem, Rotem Abuhab, Sara Vino, Nevo KatanCreator: Lior Chefetz If you have to tell the story of a tragedy in its near aftermath, I guess a key to success is razor-sharp focus. Paul Greengrass' United 93 assumes that viewers will bring their own context; the movie is a 110-minute unrelenting nightmare that accepts that countless stories from that day could be told and this is just one of them, with no aspirations of opening up its world. It doesn't give backstories for every passenger. It doesn't show the terrorists learning to fly the planes. It also knows that many viewers won't want to or won't be able to watch a story with this focus, and that's okay. Lior Chefetz's Red Alert, one of two high-profile Israeli-produced scripted projects premiering on the anniversary of the October 7 terror attacks (and the only one to send screeners to critics), aims to work on a far more emotional level than United 93. Airing on Paramount+ and Channel 12 in Israel, it's fundamentally propagandistic and calculated to yield very visceral and sentimental responses. On that level, it works pretty thoroughly and I was a mess by the fourth and final episode, despite being consistently aware of every string being pulled and every tear being jerked. But what it also does is keep its vision aggressively and smartly blindered. It tells four stories within Israel from the morning of October 7, culled from a tight six-hour factual window, sticking to a real-time-esque structure in its first couple of episodes and only cheating the timeline with a few flashbacks to the day before the attacks. It doesn't ask "What were the terrorists thinking?" or "How did the Israeli government and intelligence services blow this so badly?" or "Does this morally justify what came next?" The assumption is that viewers will bring their own answers to those questions - and that for myriad reasons, the series will be unwatchable for some audiences and a tough watch for everybody. I'm honestly not quite sure which audience is going to crave a series like Red Alert, but I can vouch that despite occasional irritatingly visible attempts to evoke response, it's breathlessly effective. The four stories capture four different October 7 experiences and four different versions of heroism (or maybe five stories and five versions of heroism, but two are connected). We're introduced to counterterrorism team leader Kobi (Israel Atias) doing undercover security work at the Nova Festival, mostly halting the spread of party drugs. Just as dawn's breaking, Kobi leaves the festival, sharing a brief moment with wife Nofar (Chen Amsalem), a fellow police officer. Kobi goes home, while Nofar is at the Festival when the Hamas terrorists attack. Nofar has to help the festivalgoers, many wounded and all scared, while Kobi barely makes it home before he has to turn around to try to save his wife. Ayoub (Hisham Sulliman), a Gazan living in Israel and unable to get any legal identification papers, is driving his wife to work, along with his very young son and two migrant laborers they picked up on the road. At the Ma'On Junction, Ayoub's car encounters a terrorist convoy, with tragic results. At the Nir Oz kibbutz, Ohad (Miki Leon), wife Batsheva (Rotem Sela) and three children are awoken by alarms and seek refuge in their home's shelter room, which unfortunately has a broken door, forcing a predictable and harrowing outcome. In a nearby village, Tali (Sara Vino) and her grown kids also go into their shelter room. When it becomes clear what is happening, son Itamar (Nevo Katan), a soldier, grabs his gun and goes running out to help, with Tali trying to find him and bring him back to safety. Red Alert is manipulative, as is clearest in two storylines in which suspense i