(dramatic music) - We can expect a massive geomagnetic storm surge in the coming hours.

- Upgrade threat level to critical - Here comes the sun.

(dramatic music) - Cobra starts with an extraordinary weather event.

A solar storm.

There's a massive power outage across the country.

There's this huge surge of energy towards earth, that can just paralyze everything.

They allowed me to build an emergency which causes other tensions to emerge.

(people shouting) - Situations getting worse here minute by minute.

- How do you think you'd cope, if your region didn't have power and electricity for anything up to two months.

- I will now speak to the palace so that her majesty can authorize the necessary powers under the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act.

This is now a national emergency.

Robert Sutherland has been prime minister for a short amount of time.

This has forced big shock that he has to cope with us and convene Cobra and try and lead the country through this disaster.

- I play Anna Marshall, who is chief of staff to the prime minister, played by Robert Carlyle.

She's very necessary to the prime minister.

She's very much his right hand woman.

They're ready for us now.

- Oh, I'm sorry, lady Macbeth.

I didn't spot you lurking there for one delightful moment.

- Robert Sutherland is a moderate prime minister under attack from a political opponent from within his own party.

- You may be able to force me out, but can you get yourself in?

- The crisis that faces the government is absolutely crucial to him and his projection of information to the country.

He's often accused of manipulating a national crisis for his own political ends.

- This country is on the brink.

We do nothing to further division or disorder.

- On the one hand, it can inhabit this quite big space, whether a plane crashes and fires and riots that on the other hand, I think it's politics and the worlds of its politics are very real.

- Agendas.

A lot of backstabbing.

You can't trust people.

It's anarchy.

It's Armageddon.

It's, you know, end of days kind of thing.

It's kind of got it all.

I think it's gonna be great.

(suspenseful music) - We will bring back power.

- This isn't a protest, it's an armed attack.

- We will turn the lights on again.

(suspenseful music)