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"Spooks" is, was, and always will be a super thriller, and marvellously stylish. It has always depended upon the willing suspension of disbelief by its audience, but the 2008 series now showing in Australia has imposed too strongly upon my ability to believe. Thrillers always rely upon the notion that the stakes are high. In current series, the goal is to prevent war between the West and Iran, with a chance of WWIII beginning. However, I find myself beginning to approach a new episode with a shrug of the shoulders: "How is the world going to end this week?" Then Malcolm's ability to break codes with seconds remaining to Armageddon is just too far out of the realms of the credible. And he does it every week. Every person in Greater London must have his or her own camera trained upon him/her, because, except when the plot requires someone to drop out of sight, anybody in the city can be found within a few seconds.
"Spooks" is essentially a classy soap. People change character from week to week. This week's goody may be next week's baddie. That is a staple of soap operas, and in the world of television spies, double agents and double crosses, that is fine. But Jo's recent inability to face torture is such a reversal -- in previous episodes, she was so unfailingly brave. And then Adam has her feign death, when the obvious thing to do was nothing until the baddies came to torture her -- just not a logical thing to do. Similarly the death and resurrection of Ros completely defies logic, just as the reappearances of characters written out of a soap frequently defy logic.
"Spooks" is still watchable, but not nearly as good as it was.
score 8/10
thos40 25 June 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2086396/ |
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28-1-2021 22:44:10