The Kollective features a group of young citizen journalists who are dedicated to speaking the truth in an age of misinformation. It’s set in locations all over the world as their investigation into a plane crash in the Congo leads them to a group of international incidents.
The Kollective stars Gijs Blom, Gregg Sulkin, Celine Buckens, Grégory Montel, and Felix Mayr as the citizen journalists. Natascha McElhone stars as a more experienced head of a mainstream publishing company who helps this team of investigators.

The series is based on real-life investigative groups like Bellingcat, but the story is fiction. One of the Kollective team is killed during the plane crash investigation, which makes the remaining members even more determined to expose the story.
The team communicate by phone and computer and are located in different places. They are able to go anywhere at a moment’s notice, and they do. The leads they follow take them to places all over Europe and they end up in Russia. I found some of their globe hopping and exploits rather far-fetched, but it made for a good thriller.
The tech aspects of what they were doing were shown in such a cool, slick, impressive way. I was continually wowed by the visuals. Oddly, the trailer emphasizes the action and danger and doesn’t show any of the high tech wizardry involved in the story. That was the best part to me.
Two examples of the tech aspects, both in Russia. They found a disinformation server farm. It was a room full of servers and one computer. Anything entered on that computer could be distributed through thousands of accounts in seconds and spread deep fakes and lies around the globe instantly. The second example was a satellite manufacturing plant in Russia where they were making a satellite that could block all electronics everywhere, bringing the world to a chaotic halt.
It’s so fast and easy to spread lies, and so dangerous and difficult to find the truth. That’s what this series is about for me.
The cast was good and gave their characters depth and humanity. Celine Buckens as the one woman on the team was fearless and determined.
There were six episodes, and the various plot lines were all completed in the series, so I don’t know if there is a plan for another season. Randa Chahoud directed half of the episodes. It’s steaming on Hulu.
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