TV

‘The Honorable Woman’ is much more than a ‘Homeland’ clone

As cable series go, SundanceTV’s “The Honorable Woman,” premiering Thursday, appears to be fairly standard. You’ve got your dark, action-y thriller elements, with a strong female lead (Maggie Gyllenhaal in her TV debut) plopped in the middle of an explosive situation.

A powerful London-based Israeli who’s just been made a peer, Gyllenhaal’s Nessa Stein seems to be on top of the world. But she’s also embroiled in the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

For Hugo Blick, creator of the BBC import, the news coming out of the Middle East shouldn’t distort what the show’s really about.

“What’s happening right now is clearly horrific,” the British writer-director says. “When conflicts like that happen, there’s only one position: reconciliation should never be removed from the table. This story explores what reconciliation means and how hard it is.”

Yet what makes this eight-episode miniseries more than a “Homeland” clone is its unique rhythm. You may have heard of “slow TV,” in which plots take forever to move along, but “The Honorable Woman” sets a new standard for ultra-leisurely pace. At times, the show feels as if the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky directed a John Le Carré script.

“This glacial feel is because [Nessa] will not reveal the soul of her self,” Blick says. “Everybody in this story has secrets, and they’re all vulnerable if they slip up. So the pacing of their conversations is very deliberate.”

This also applies to the show’s cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, which come courtesy of a trio of MI6 spies played by the formidable Stephen Rea, Eve Best and Janet McTeer.

Add Lubna Azabal (“Incendies”) in the key role of Nessa’s Palestinian friend, and you have a rare female-centric roster.

“This is like the World Cup: We’ve got 11 strikers and they’re all women,” Blick says, laughing. “And the goalkeeper’s Stephen Rea.”

“It’s delicious to watch them cat-and-mouse each other,” he continues. “In terms of structure the thriller is the chassis, what you build your psychological things around. The macro relationship between all the parties gets explored by the end.”

Blick is the rare TV creator to write and direct his shows, and his vision is further deepened by his own experience in front of the camera — his highest-profile role was the younger version of Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s “Batman.”

“As an actor I learned that it takes huge amounts of confidence to be willing to reveal your vulnerability,” he explains. “So I make sure that the actors feel completely protected, that they have the confidence to explore.”

This probably helped him coax superior performances from his cast, most notably Gyllenhaal.

“Maggie is a tricky one to meet. She takes her time,” Blick recalls. “I never know how good an actor is going to be until they walk out on set, and she absolutely had it.

And it’s not just the [English] accent, even if it’s remarkable. She seemed to completely understand this woman: Nessa’s certain, she’s uncertain. She’s sexy, she feels ugly. She has all these qualities, the character — and so did Maggie.”