Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Attack On London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About The 2005 Terrorist Attack And The Lengthy Investigation

The four-part docuseries Attack On London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers, directed by Liza Williams, examines the worst terrorist attack on British soil and the investigation that followed, sending those and London and around the UK into panic mode over who planned the attack and where they might strike next.

ATTACK ON LONDON: HUNTING THE 7/7 BOMBERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of London. We hear the voice of one of the men accused of the July 7, 2005 bombings of three Underground trains and 1 bus, killing 52 people and injuring 770 others.

The Gist: Through interviews with survivors, reporters, law enforcement and political figures like then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, the fateful morning of July 7, 2005 is described, including the horrific scenes at the site of the three tube bombings. One victim, then-26-year-old Dan Biddle, describes standing on the tube train next to a man with a backpack who was staring without blinking. Then there was a flash, and the train going off the track. He somehow survived, though there were body parts and charred remains of fellow passengers around him.

Almost four years since the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., many Brits were quick to turn on Islamic British citizens. There were attacks on mosques, and one survivor, Mustafa Kurtuldu, describes how BBC anchor Katty Kay asked him straight out how, because he was a practicing Muslim, how he feels that his religion is being used as a basis for these attacks. This was happening amid an investigation that hadn’t even pinpointed who executed these suicide bombings, much less why. But Islamophobia ran rampant.

On the government side, the question that Blair, who left a G8 summit after the bombings happened, and others needed answers for was who did it, even though answers to how M!5, MI6 and other intelligence agencies missed chatter about these attacks were to follow, as well. On the law enforcement side, when four young men with big backpacks were spotted on CCTV at King’s Cross station the morning of the bombings, their whereabouts were traced back to the Luton station, and the car they drove to the station was still there.

Photo: Netflix

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The feel of Attack On London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers is similar to docuseries like American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden.

Our Take: Like some of the other docuseries we’ve seen recently about large-scale attacks from our recent past, Attack On London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers really doesn’t try to do anything but what it’s supposed to do, which is describe the horrors of the day of the attack and go step-by-step through the subsequent investigation. It does that efficiently and effectively, likely putting the people that survived the 7/7 attack — or even just saw the live reports on TV — right back to that day 20 years ago.

While the scale of death and destruction from the 7/7 attacks doesn’t approach what happened in the U.S. on 9/11, a suicide attack on mass transit on a busy July morning accomplished two things: It made people scared of doing the everyday things they need to go to work and school, and it fomented division, especially against Islamic Brits. The impact of the second thing can’t be underestimated, and it was brought home by Kurtuldu and other Muslims interviewed by the producers.

We give the filmmakers a lot of credit for getting Blair to sit for an interview. It’s rare for a head of state to go on camera to do an in-depth interview about a terrorist attack that happened under his or her watch, but Blair’s perspective helps fill in how leaders in his position take action in cases like these, where initial information is scattered and often not accurate.

The next three episodes will detail the investigation, and how the country was on pins and needles waiting for more attacks. As that onion gets peeled, we’ll likely also hear about more attacks against Muslims and more conspiracy theories that abounded around the attacks.

Photo: Netflix

Sex and Skin: None.

Most Pilot-y Line: There is no reason to show survivors like Biddle up close then flash to a wider shot to reveal that he’s in a wheelchair. The way he describes his injuries the day of the bombing, the wheelchair is almost a given. That just felt cheap manipulation.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Attacking London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers dispenses with most of the frills you see in docuseries about big events from the past and sticks to the facts. Given how devastating and scary the attacks were, that’s all that’s really needed.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.