Spooks

This is one of the better British TV thrillers to emerge in a few good years. What initially attracted me was another varied acting choice by Matthew MacFayden, but on watching I found myself compelled. It does suffer from some unrealism, but the characters are so interesting, the plots so varied, it makes up for it. And yes, yes, it does rip off from 24, but it hasn't tried to hide it, so in my opinion that's a good thing, seeing as 24 used some of the most innovative effects. Also, some of the secondary casting, such as Hugh Laurie's nasty Jools and Peter Firth's big boss Harry. Also, guest appearances by Anthony Head and Tim Piggot-Smith just add to the strength of this show. I eagerly await the second series, after the excellent end of the first. If you are interested in MacFayden's performance (he is one of the strongest new English talents) then check out the worthy The Way We Live Now (where he plays a cad) and the absolutely wonderful Perfect Strangers.

I've seen these on A&E in America and from the first I was hooked. The pressure cooker atmosphere and the modern day dot-com look puts this show about "counter intelligence" on another level than today's so called spy shows.

It's not the eye-candy of Alias and frankly its better than the flat delivery of the now canned Agency or Threat Matrix (both of which strive to be too PC in their "diverseness").

The writing is very well layered. It pulls the viewer in, and there's enough original material that many times you can't "skip ahead" to the fourth act in your mind. Meaning, you haven't figured out the end by the second break.

MI-5, or Spooks, puts enough plot twists in for any true fan of the genre. Well worth the time and effort to watch. Too bad American network television can't produce a show of this caliber.

(11/17/05 comment) Also, I was so intrigued by the UK version of Spooks, that I got into downloading the shows via the Internet, and I have to say it's an even better experience. I wish A&E would run the entire episode and not a chopped up version. The editing has to do with advert breaks more than content. If you only see this on A&E then I would suggest downloading it or renting/buying the DVD sets.

I absolutely LOVE this series. I got hooked with the episode involving the deep fryer and I've been hopelessly addicted ever since. This series is incredibly suspenseful and involving and I cannot wait to see what they come up with every week. The acting and writing is superb. I love this genre and I'm glad to see someone is doing something worthwhile with it. Highly recommended!!

Just finished the last episode of series three, and was reminded why this is my favourite show of all time. I think the comparisons to 24 are quite unfair--they both deal with terrorism, but the similarities end there. Spooks is far more cerebral, and spends more effort on character and plot development.

Unlike other reviewers, I felt series three was every bit as good (and in many ways even better) than the previous two. The departure of several main characters was handled exceedingly well, and while they'll be missed, I think their replacements are quite strong and as such, the transition has been quite smooth. Kudos! (Er, no pun intended)

This show (titled MI-5) just landed on Tuesday nights at 10 pm, with many encores throughout the week on the A&E channel. For those of you who are not familiar with the american channels, A&E runs various biography shows, a few other british shows, among others. To put it another way, when I watched it, there were no commercials for beer or fast food. It is a smart interesting show without all the flash of "24" or "alias", which are among my favorite shows. In the first episode there was little background on the characters, which is very different for american television audiences. I felt like I had missed a few episodes. The show did not spend as much time on the tech stuff either, but somehow that didn't seem so important as a great story unfolded during the hour. Very little publicity about this show has made it out there, and I only hope that enough people will stick it out and give the show enough of an audience to continue, lest we be stuck with only more of the summer dreck from the big networks.