There was a revolution in television in the 1990s and, as with most revolutions, I didn't really approve.

What happened was this: TV used to be made in three-walled studios with three or four big static cameras; then, in the 90s, lighter equipment made it easier to move about and suddenly every show looked like it was being shot by a drunk on the dodgems in an earthquake. On the shows that first used the technique, such as This Life, it was ground-breaking, but before long shaky camera was ubiquitous, then grossly over-used. It was like all of TV was having one big, long bilious attack.

But, as with all revolutions, eventually the counter-revolution comes and so, after years of fast, jumpy camerawork, the most exciting directors are now slowing things down again.

In March, we saw it in David Hare's Turks and Caicos (still the best drama so far this year) and again this week with Hugo Blick's The Honourable Woman (BBC Two, Thursday, 9pm), the first episode of which spent a lot of time lingering over the details - such as blood seeping over a white tablecloth; or the brick lanes and fire escapes of urban Britain; or the strange, unusual beauty of Maggie Gyllenhaal's face.

Gyllenhaal, in her first television role, plays a British-Israeli businesswoman Nessa Stein who is now running the family firm that once sold arms to Israel but now sells digital technology and employs both Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, Nessa Stein is an idealist although, as John Humphrys tells her in a cameo as himself, in the Middle East, it never ends wells for idealists.

If you were looking for proof of that, on the night the first episode of The Honourable Woman went out, the main news headlines were about the aftermath of the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

In a piece of dramatic synchronicity, The Honourable Woman also featured the kidnapping of an Israeli child which put it in the weird middle-place between news and drama and proved one of the rules of television: great drama can be inspired by real events, but the greatest drama predicts them.

The Honourable Woman has the potential to be great in other ways too, particularly with the central character of Stein.

On the face of it, she is a philanthropist and politician with a strong moral compass but the first episode dropped in a few indications that the compass could be wobbly. In fact, her opening speech suggested that pretty much no one could be trusted. "We all have secrets," she said, "and we all tell lies just to keep the secrets from each other and from ourselves."

In signalling lies and mistrust as one of its main themes in this way, perhaps The Honourable Woman will end up feeling cynical. Nessa Stein says she wants to tackle terrorism, which, in her words, breeds in poverty and dies in wealth, but her philosophy was already starting to go badly wrong in the first episode and there are seven more to go: seven more episodes of conspiracy, greed, self-interest, selfishness and fear.

It sound likes a great drama because it sounds like real life.