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Go undercover with 'Sleeper Cell' , the new thriller from FX

Saturday 25 March 2006 01:00 GMT
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'Sleeper Cell' launches on 11 April on FX
'Sleeper Cell' launches on 11 April on FX

Terror has evolved. Now it is in the hands of small groups of fanatical extremists. Sleeper cells, existing within the communities they intend to harm, the cultures they seek to destroy. Friends. Neighbours. Terrorists?

Michael Ealy (Barbershop) stars as Darwyn Al Sayeed, a deep cover FBI agent, who has spent three years infiltrating a fundamentalist group operating out of Los Angeles. Darwyn’s mission is not only to bring down the cell, but also to take the FBI where they have never been before, inside the Al-Qaeda network.

Sleeper Cell is a rich and complex thriller that examines terror from the inside. Darwyn is one of the FBI’s few Muslim agents, and must face a part of his faith he abhors. Writer Cyrus Voris said this was “a way to examine the two faces of Islam—a spiritual peace-loving religion, the Islam of the mainstream—and the brutal jihad-driven Islam of the radical fundamentalists.”

Darwyn was posing as a prisoner in a high security federal penitentiary positioning himself for recruitment into a cell of fedayeen led by the mysterious and beguiling Farik. Darwyn’s infiltration, a coup for the FBI, leads him into a world of contorted logic and twisted religion, a world where death and violence appear not only justified but advocated by Darwyn’s own faith.

By taking us inside, Sleeper Cell is a very different show. The terrorists are real characters, fully drawn and hardly the cartoon terrorists of Bond films or Die Hard’s Hans Gruber. For viewers, empathy can turn to horror in the blink of an eye.

Nominated for a Golden Globe, called “Disturbingly realistic... better than 24” by the New York Times, Sleeper Cell starts on FX (Home of The Wire, Chappelle’s Show & Carnivale ) on Tuesday April 11th at 10pm.

Produced by Showtime, now vying with HBO to produce the most risky, adult orientated, thought provoking programming ( Huff, Fat Actress, Weeds), Sleeper Cell is thrilling, edge of the seat viewing.

If all this talk of spying has got you excited and wishing you were an undercover agent, head straight to www.fxuk.com/sleepercell where you can win a Red Letter Day Spy Games gift voucher.

Here’s your chance to delve into the murky world of espionage for a day and find out if you have what it takes to become a spy.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to learn specialist spy skills, test your marksmanship, learn evasive driving techniques and unarmed combat.

Sleeper Cell is on FX at 10pm, Tuesdays, starting April 11th.

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