Spooks: The deterioration of a great show
The early seasons of Spooks, a well-produced BBC action-drama about a small band of MI-5 agents serving to protect the UK, provided compelling entertainment. Giving the writers some latitude in developing plots that had the same team of MI-5 saving Britain each week from a variety of home grown and foreign militants, the show had excellent production values, good story lines and developed the characters' background to help create audience empathy. Led by Matthew Macfadyen and Peter Firth, the actors had good chemistry and, occasionally, the plot raised interesting questions about the dilemmas faced by domestic intelligence agencies.In later seasons, however, notably five and six, and integrity of Spooks seriously deteriorated, as the quality of the plot became ridiculous, and then absurd. Life-long conspiracy theorists would have had a good laugh and Spooks adopted repetitive themes of general xenophobia, targeting particularly the United States, but also generally simplistic conspiracy themes within most of the UK Government (virtually everyone except our intrepid MI-5 team). Simultaneously, the show forgot to focus on the individual characters, providing two- dimensional studies of the new MI-5 players, with the exception of Adam (Rupert Penry- Jones), who carried the brunt of providing some unsophisticated examples of conflict. As a result, it became more difficult to care about the fate of the team, or of the country, the supposed threats so outlandish it may as well have been science fiction.
It is a shame, because obviously there is an audience for this type of show, and a basic idea that would be engrossing. If only it felt a little factual.
score 7/10
JSC-2 25 August 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1935887/14705
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