For years, American studios have struggled to produce a credible secret agent show, with personal drama and story arcs that aren’t hopelessly soap operaesque. Apart from the more cartoonish ones that have succeeded on a certain level, the “gritty” ones have failed to entertain me (I’m especially thinking of 24 here).
But MI5:Spooks is great. It strikes a balance between cliffhanger episodes and well-resolved ones, it has longer story arcs without going to ridiculous extremes, and it has great characters that it is willing to demolish on George Martin levels. It’s got problems, to be sure, but I’m not here to quibble. I’m here to gush and see if anyone else is on board here. And, of course, to raise awareness. You need to torrent this at the least, and the real dvd’s are a decent value.