And, for a show about an event that affected the lives of far more natives of countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand (where the miniseries is set) than it did those in English-speaking countries, Tsunami is resolutely focused on Westerners, with only two Thais among its cornucopia of stock-type main characters. Like any good disaster flick, it features a cross-section of financially and (relatively) ethnically diverse characters, including two vacationing British families; a spunky Aussie missionary; an ineffectual British diplomat; a washed-up white journalist and his Thai cameraman; and a Thai waiter at the hotel where the two families were staying.
You know these people right away: Tim Roth's grizzled reporter has been bounced out of his job but needs just one more chance to get that big story; Toni Collette's missionary has can-do spirit but is lonely inside; and Hugh Bonneville's bureaucrat is only doing his job until he learns that just doing his job is not enough! Okay, so it's not quite as hackneyed as that sounds, but it's mostly the assured acting from dependable sorts like Collette, Roth and Bonneville that carries it when Morgan's paint-by-numbers script simply offers speech after speech. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sophie Okonedo, normally fine actors, are not so lucky as the vacationing couple whose young daughter goes missing in the tsunami and who spend the entire miniseries looking for her. All Ejiofor does is wail for the entire three-hour running time, and Okonedo's character goes a bit off the deep end in an odd plot development that finds her taking someone else's daughter when hers doesn't show up.
Roth's journalist gets the most compelling storyline, even if he has to sacrifice any interesting character traits for it. He ends up investigating every possible conspiracy surrounding the disaster, including Thai monks burning dead bodies, an ignored report on the potential danger of tsunamis and shady land deals for hotel chains that exploit natives who've lost their homes. It's a bit much to ask one character to carry, but at least it's a change of pace from the otherwise relentless parade of sad faces.
Some of those sad faces do end up being affecting, and it's hard to fault Morgan and director Bharat Nalluri entirely for focusing on Western characters when this is, after all, a show for Western television. There is plenty of attention paid to the hardships of the Thai people, but other than the waiter played by Samrit Machielsen, we hear more than see any of it, and the loss we experience first-hand is all that of the Brits.
As a memorial to people like that, who lost so much in the disaster, Tsunami is passable. But its fictional nature lessens its potential for social commentary, and its grieving characters ultimately mean very little that couldn't easily be transported to the next obligatory TV production about an earthquake, a wildfire or a hurricane.