When a series is based on real eventsbut the characters are all fictional, so there’s a chance things will go off the rails, with over-the-top performances and far-fetched situations. The shows that work best show a lot of restraint. A new series about a politically motivated siege of the Central Bank of Barcelona in 1981 that practices this restraint.

Opening shot: The Central Bank of Barcelona. May 23, 1981, 9:05 a.m.

The bottom line: A group of a dozen men, all armed with rifles, don ski masks and brazenly walk through the front door of the Central Bank. The leader of the group, called No. 1 (Miguel Herrán), shoots into the ceiling and asks the crowd to come down. The theft takes place exactly three months after Spain’s relatively new democratic government attempted a coup in the Congress of Deputies. As the police respond to the robbery, #1 and the group have a shootout with the authorities.

It’s Maider’s (María Pedraza) first day on the job at Barcelona Dailywhere his late father worked. The editor, Isabel (Patricia Vico), appreciates her work and points out that her getting the job has nothing to do with her father or his death during the revolution. Almost as soon as she sits down at her new desk, she receives a phone call from someone associated with the bank robbers, who leaves an envelope in a phone booth containing their demands. She asks Berni (Hovik Keuchkerian), a veteran photojournalist who has won awards but is mostly drunk and exhausted, to go to the scene.

There they found the envelope and read the demands: The release of three people associated with the February 23 coup attempt. The thieves will start killing hostages in groups if the demands are not met. Maider believes she has the scoop of the year, but when Paco López (Isak Férriz), the police detective assigned to the case, enters the scene, he asks Maider not to divulge the contents of the letter for an hour. Maider, making a rookie mistake, complies, but when she realizes that she is being picked up, she protests to Paco, who locks her and Berni in a police van.

Meanwhile, it appears the thieves are using the political angle as a cover for a real theft. No. 1 negotiates with Paco so that the Red Cross brings him food, in exchange for the release of a few hostages. But he also takes the opportunity to go out and see what he’s up against. In addition, he shoots a young hostage in the knee, knowing that he will be released and debriefed by the police.

The Prime Minister sends the head of the Civil Guard to Barcelona, ​​and when he hears the voice of number 1 on the phone with Paco, he is almost sure that it is José Juan Martínez Gómez, a member of the Civil Guard disappeared after the attempted coup. .

What shows will this remind you of? Even though the show is based on true events, Bank under siege is more or less a series of heists along the lines of Money theft.

Our opinion: Bank under siege this feels like a series that will be more about how various groups of people react during the siege than the characters themselves. If there is any character development in the series, it will happen in the moments in between. So there will be a mention of something, like Maider’s father, in passing, that will fill in some of the blanks. But for the most part, this feels like a story in which the characters will be identified by how they react in this extreme situation.

The characters surrounding this heist are ones we’ve seen before: the young journalist trying to prove herself paired with the bitter, cynical, ever-handy old pro; the cop who still does things the old-fashioned way; the cunning leader of the criminal team who seems to outsmart everyone until the very end.

There’s a lot of potential for archetypal characters like this to go bad. But the performances of Pedraza, Keuchkerian, Férriz, and Herrán are understated enough that these archetypes seem at least relatively close to the real people they likely represent. At some point, will there be some stunning behavior from these characters? Probably. But for now, everyone plays their character relatively realistically.

The most intriguing part of this story is how the theft uses politics as cover. Yes, José and his team may have it in their heads to support the opposition, but in a scene where they get dizzy from all the money in the safe, it shows where their motivation really is. Of course, it’s clever to use the attempted coup as cover, but it will be interesting to see how long that cover lasts.

Sex and skin: Nothing.

Starting shot: José, after observing the progress of his team in drilling the wall next to the vault, puts his mask back on to join the hostages.

Sleeping Star: We love Patricia Vico as Isabel, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. She supports Maider because there are very few women in the industry at the time, but she will also be tough on Maider.

Most pilot line: In fact, we’re not 100% sure why José shot the young hostage in the knee, other than to show a little blood. Maybe we just need to see this scene again.

Our call: Spread it. Although there are many opportunities for Bank under siege to be silly, it’s relatively restrained in its first episode and sets up an intriguing standoff as the season progresses.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but he’s under no illusions: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and elsewhere.