Spooks

[LuvPeckham]

Is anyone as confused as I am concerning the new series of Spooks on the Jolly old Beeb ?

Why are MI5 (internal security) flying all over the world to stop the Iran plot ? Isn't that MI6's role (International Security) in fact, why has MI6 not been mentioned in this series yet ? the last few seasons they were all over MI5 and now they seem to have vanished (spookely so)

Has this series lost it's cutting edge ? or have the writers tried something different that just doesn't have the same tension as the previous seasons ?

What do you think ED ?

[SimonM]

Not liked it nearly as much since Keeley Hawes (once of ED) left...B)

[8 Track Cartrige Family]

Spooks is glossy, fast-paced entertainment of an entirely different order to most British TV. It doesn't feel compelled to explain everything to its audience, for constant exposition, and for neat resolution. What we get from Spooks barely resembles traditional dialogue - with questions, answers, follow-ups - and if you want that you'll have to tune into Cranford or Casualty The action - laced with fragments of colloquy to which James Joyce would be hard-pressed to ascribe narrative coherence - proceeds at such a rate that there seems to be no distinction between the intentionally compressed "last week's episode in a 20-second nutshell" introductions and the rest of a given episode. Blink and not only have you missed it, but everyone in EC1 has been blown up, chief suspects interrogated and alibis confirmed, and all of a sudden it turns out some trusted insider you've only met for 10 seconds (in 10 different scenes) has masterminded the entire thing using only a black pudding, string vest and a borrowed nuclear trigger from a Kazakhstani carpet salesman. Now that's quality tv.

[mockney piers]

Perfect description of Spooks. It's very silly but undeniably engrossing.

ANd agree about Keeley Hawes *sniffles*

[boosboss]

Spooks is amazing! In last weeks episode, they took off in one type of plane heading for Iran, only to arrive in a different plane in Turkey. Mid-air transfer perhaps?

[*Bob*]

I'm thoroughly enjoying this series (that's SERIES.. not SEASON..), definitely an improvement on the previous ones. Extreme silliness played totally straight is a good thing.

I like the way that the recap does absolutely nothing for anyone who hasn't been watching - and not a lot for those who have. And the 'next week' bit, which might as well be a load of clips of random explosions, closeups of raised eyebrows - all intercut with a few frames of Star Trek here and there.

[lozzyloz]

Don't like series like Spooks. It's based on that Hollyood technique of building on our fears that all middle eastern people and citizens east of Vienna are baddies and we're all whiter than white as we fight the axis of evil thing in the name of freedom, democracy and Christianity. Utter balderdash!

[*Bob*]

Shit! I thought it was a documentary.

[mockney piers]

In all fairness they pick on the americans more than most. Quite right too ;)

[downsouth]

I really enjoy spooks - I thought I was the only one :-$ At least my secret is out. It can be mindless and in some random-bits-don't-necessarily-connect type of way it reminds me of Syriana which is measly with backstory and resolutions etc... But it works dammit.

[AnotherPaul]

This series has lost me. Where did the faux-French woman's awful accent go and didn't it used to be a story per episode? In trying to be topical it's heavy handed, the Iranian plot line makes for decent drama but the 'foreigners are going to kill us all' message at it's core is bad/boring/lazy.

I do suspect the cameraman is the same person who did NYPD blue titles.

[mockney piers]

There was a very good review of it in private eye the other week, i'll see if i can unearth it.

Interesting and entertaining review rather than 'good' review, though they didn't pan it, which is very uncycloptic.

Yeah, I was wondering about the accent last night. It seems to have gone from french to yugoslav, or icelandic or something.

[8 Track Cartrige Family]

But the worst eastern european tv accent of recent years has to go to Dennis Hopper in his mercifully brief - though admittedly entertaining - appearance towads the end of the first series of 24. Maybe it was an elaborate joke by his voice coach but Serbian masterminds don't come less Serbian than Dennis Hopper's performance.

[*Bob*]

Must be time for a special mention of Don Cheadle's cockerney accent in O.Eleven. Cor Blimey!

[snorky]

bigegst recruiting aid for the secutrity services ever apparently.

I know some spoooks and they are rubbish civil servants thats all.

[fractionater]

I don't watch spooks but have the impression that its the Beeb having ago at "24" (which i like v.much!)

[SimonM]

>>I know some spoooks and they are rubbish civil servants thats all.<<

But that's what they want you to think....

[snorky]

I watched one being pickpocked at Keleti station in Budapest some years ago, literally a metre in front of me after falling for the newspaper on the face routine - utterly laughable incompetence.

Or managing to bribe our way our of a severe kicking In Sebasatpol by a bunch of coppers, whilst secrt service man was nearly crying and demanding to be taken to the British Embassy...3 days later in St Petersburg, whilst at a nightclub I left them to fend for themsleves and gave them detials of the hotels address in Cyrillic so they could get home - when I arrived back in the morning, both had been mugged by the Russian police, their USD taken and one had a broken finger.

rubbish