Spooks - or as our cousins over the pond call it...M15

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Discuss your love/hate/complete ignorance of Harry, Ruth, Ros, and all the ones who came before them. Do you watch this show? Like it? Feel it's gone downhill since they started trying to make it more and more like 24? Walk past the Masonic building and think, hee, spies!

[tangent]

As I've said elsewhere i love spooks but prefer the earlier eps that concentrated on the spies personal relationships away from spying as well as their missions within it. I think this was something that was new at the time, it was a fresh angle on spy dramas and I think it has become a little bit lost along the way.

Spooks is still quality telly though Rupert Thingy-wotsit is great as Adam as is Peter Firth as Harry. Fave eps would have to be the dirty bomb/ training exersise ep in which we're left guessing right till the end what is going om, the ep where Harry goes solo and shows some proper old school spycraft and the Diana ep which was just so real.

My only real gripe with spooks is the rather large body count. There have been some truly interesting characters in spooks, characters you can really get invested in and root for but the average life expectancy of some of these characters is not exactly great. I think this is something that should get toned down a little in order to stop it becoming too predictable.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

As I've said elsewhere i love spooks but prefer the earlier eps that concentrated on the spies personal relationships away from spying as well as their missions within it. I think this was something that was new at the time, it was a fresh angle on spy dramas and I think it has become a little bit lost along the way.

Spooks is still quality telly though Rupert Thingy-wotsit is great as Adam as is Peter Firth as Harry. Fave eps would have to be the dirty bomb/ training exersise ep in which we're left guessing right till the end what is going om, the ep where Harry goes solo and shows some proper old school spycraft and the Diana ep which was just so real.

Training exercise was AMAZING. With Harry "dying" through it. Also loved the cliffhanger to the first season, with the poor innocent girlfriend of Tom being stuck in the house with the bomb.

Hmm, I don't remember the Diana ep...is that in season 6?

I think it's the conflicts between the spies and government that I enjoy the most. Well, the spies and the CIA and the government here: love all that intrigue and in-fighting and the fact that from a citizen's point of view you would assume that her majesty's secret service and her majesty's government are to all intents and purposes working together towards the same goals. But when the political goals of the weasel politicians, or the personal agendas of the spies get in the way of that, love it.

My only real gripe with spooks is the rather large body count. There have been some truly interesting characters in spooks, characters you can really get invested in and root for but the average life expectancy of some of these characters is not exactly great. I think this is something that should get toned down a little in order to stop it becoming too predictable.

Interesting point about predictability - in the early days of Spooks, I think it may even have been the first ep, they killed a woman who seemed set up to be a main character. That was genuinely shocking and introduced a dangerous atmosphere. But now, they do seem to be offing people left right and centre and, as you say, it loses the danger if it's not "special" any more. Though that's possibly a slightly sick usee of the word special.

[tangent]

Hmm, I don't remember the Diana ep...is that in season 6

End of season 4.

I think it's the conflicts between the spies and government that I enjoy the most. Well, the spies and the CIA and the government here: love all that intrigue and in-fighting and the fact that from a citizen's point of view you would assume that her majesty's secret service and her majesty's government are to all intents and purposes working together towards the same goals. But when the political goals of the weasel politicians, or the personal agendas of the spies get in the way of that, love it.

Yeah that's something else i love. It really brings it home that the spooks work for the crown and not the government. Especially in eps like the two parter at the start of season 5.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

End of season 4.

Hmm, wonder why I don't remember it? Must rewatch. I've watched it stretched over such a long period of time that I don't have a great sense of the continuity. But, meaty stuff. I like that they deal with real issues, has the joy of familiarity, of "I saw that in the news, and I can totally imagine this happening behind the scenes". It's that view behind that's so exciting. I'm sure it's nothing like that really (spies are probably all rather dull, or should be...the less noticeable the better on the whole). But it gives a thrill of heightened reality.

Yeah that's something else i love. It really brings it home that the spooks work for the crown and not the government. Especially in eps like the two parter at the start of season 5.

Ooh, then I have goodies in store.

Wouldn't it be cool if they actually had the queen in an ep? Played by Helen Mirren perhaps

[The_Narrator]

I think Spooks is fantastic! I agree with the above that the intrigues amongst the various bodies are fantastic, like the recent episode where the Home Secretary decided to assassinate Harry's team ... but to prevent a war. And I'm a big fan of all 'having-to-pick-an-evil-and-decide-which-is-lesser' plotlines. Also agree with the reality of the situations - well, not the running around and shooting everything that moves, that doesn't exactly happen - but the situations, which are contemporary and highly plausible. The villains are truly evil, but again, in not-so-Machiavellian, stroking beard way, the believable way, e.g. environmental terrorists, deranged ex-spies, religious fundamentalists, ex-IRA etc. But then again, it's a bit simplistic to call them evil, there were many I felt sympathy for. Obviously not condoning terrorism, but easy to see how these people could be driven to it, many of them had been genuinely aggrieved. Also interesting to see the ethical side of it from the spies' point of view, to see when they felt conflicted, how they dealt with it. Ros joining Yalta for instance, Adam deciding to report Mi5's activity to a journalist etc.