That is in no small part thanks to the work of her husband Richard, whose tireless and personally brutal campaigning shone a light on Nazanin's plight, which could otherwise have gone so much deeper under the radar.
Based in part on Nazanin and Richard's upcoming book, A Yard of Sky, which is set to be released next year, the series is a powerful, unflinching piece of drama, which is at once both deeply upsetting and utterly enraging.
As the mother and daughter were waiting to board a flight back to the UK, they were arrested at the airport, and Gabriella's passport was confiscated.
Over the following years, Richard worked to bring her home in any way possible. As he became disillusioned with the political response, he turned to making waves in the press to draw attention to Nazanin's plight.
Both he and Nazanin became convinced that she was a pawn in a decades-old political dispute between the Iranian government and the UK, relating to a debt the latter owed. The UK government has always denied that the two issues were linked, but her freedom, and the freedom of other imprisoned dual nationals, was only secured after the debt was paid. That was six years later, in 2022.
It's an interesting prospect, given that the story is still so fresh in recent history. This recency suggests that the intention behind the programme is not necessarily just to make you aware of Nazanin's plight, but to make you understand it, both in greater detail and on an emotional level.
Just like Nazanin and Richard themselves, you as a viewer are thrown into a chaotic, confounding situation, where events are escalating at a mile a minute and it's hard to truly reckon with the enormity of what is happening.
Then come the final scenes of the episode. One particular sequence, in which Nazanin is briefly reunited with Gabriella, is so moving, so deeply upsetting and so profoundly human, I'd challenge anyone not to well up.
So many of the sequences are utterly infuriating, as she protests her innocence, yet it becomes clearer and clearer the truth really doesn't matter here. There are other factors at play, and she has no agency is securing her own freedom, and reuniting with her daughter and husband.
It's a performance which could so easily have been one-note, given the suffering Nazanin is seen experiencing, but Rashidi manages to make it anything but, layering her portrayal with additional elements of hope, joy and wit.
Like Rashidi, Joseph Fiennes is phenomenal in his role. It's a profoundly un-showy performance, one full of restraint, compassion and perseverance, with Richard's frustration and despair almost always bubbling under the surface rather than being out in the open.
The political narrative is entirely told through Richard and Nazanin's eyes. There are no scenes trying to guess at the conversations the Iranian officials were having privately, nor are there any meeting shown between the British government ministers regarding the situation, without Richard being present.
However, one downside is that it does leave the scenes with real-life British political figures feeling somewhat artificial and incongruous with the rest of the series.
In contrast, there are three politicians and former Government ministers that do feature and are played by actors – Tobias Ellwood, James Cleverly and Liz Truss.
However, there's no denying that it is jarring seeing Liz Truss brought to life as a character (and a little bit of a caricature), not long after witnessing the real Boris Johnson.
The rest of the cast play their parts ably, with strong performances from the likes of Kavé Niku and Behi Djanati-Atai as Nazanin's brother and mother, as well as from the young actors playing Gabriella at various points of her life.
The end of the drama does go on to highlight another prisoner and activist, whose journey we have seen glimpses of, but in a way which feels slightly out of the blue and doesn't really feel earned by the series. It's clear what the drama is trying to do here, but unfortunately it doesn't entirely land, given the highly personal route it has taken with the rest of its runtime.
The team behind the series clearly know that in telling a story like this, it is key not to lose focus on the elements that matter. This is a story about resilience, about love, about justice and injustice, but predominantly, it's the story about Nazanin and Richard, two unremarkable people who were forced to become remarkable through horrific circumstance.
In its small, limited way, in the way that any drama can, this series does them justice.
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