Critic Reviews

As the world watches and waits to see if peace can be achieved, one thing is clear: “Red Alert” and “One Day in October” are stories that vividly show the price without it.

I’m honestly not quite sure which audience is going to crave a series like Red Alert, but I can vouch that despite occasional irritatingly visible attempts to evoke response, it’s breathlessly effective.

“Red Alert,” created by Lior Chefetz, is the more conventional in form, working in the familiar mode of terrorism drama. .... Kinetic, somber and emotionally intense, it could be any number of streaming-TV terrorism thrillers, but for the fact that its action heroes are ordinary people.

“Red Alert” attempts to cleave away everything but the immediate and subjective. .... It’s thus the very elements that make “Red Alert” such an affecting watch that also make the show an inherently impossible effort. .... “Red Alert” otherwise excels at capturing the confusion and occasional absurdity of the chaos victims were left to navigate for themselves.

Red Alert tries its best to show the harrowing experience of October 7 in southern Israel while concentrating on the heroic acts that happened that day. It’s a balance that’s at times hard to maintain but it is also worth watching.

Crouched in a defensive posture, Red Alert and One Day in October are responding to an argument they’re not naming, even as they try to appear bold. .... One Day in October holds up Taasa’s grief like a blinding torch, so bright and overwhelming that the thousands of grieving parents who live mere miles from her have been obscured. Occasionally, though — in Red Alert especially — the camera drifts over to a shot of Gaza, shining high-rises looming in the distance.