Spooks - Series 10 [DVD]

I had wondered somewhat uneasily whether the writers, cast and crew of 'Spooks' would be able to create a conclusion that would match the still (after ten years!) high standards of this show, but my apprehension turned out to be unfounded. Yes, the quality within this series is uneven. I thoroughly enjoyed episodes 1 and 2, 5 and 6. The third and fourth episodes , while certainly not bad, and with a lot of redeeming features, suffered a little from focusing on the new section chief, Erin Watts (Lara Pulver) and the other field officer, Dmitri Levendis (Max Brown). The fact that they did is, in my opinion, entirely due to the two actors concerned, who were woefully miscast. I should say in fairness that Geoffrey Streatfield, who plays Callum, the other newcomer, is a different kettle of fish. He quickly grew on me - the character has a similar dry wit to Ros Myers, and I think I would have enjoyed him had the series continued. But Max Brown is desperately wooden, and seems to have a gift for becoming almost invisible on screen, even when he has it to himself. Lara Pulver's performance throughout is so poor as to be embarrassing; she reads her lines as if she was still at rehearsal, and alongside actors of the calibre of Nicola Walker and Peter Firth she looks like a first-year drama student, and a poor one at that. The gulf between her and the previous female Section Chief, Ros Myers, as played by Hermione Norris, is vast, and just rubs salt into the wound. Both she and Mr Brown are proof that casting someone for their looks rather than their acting ability is a sad mistake, and because of it, episodes 3 and 4 are the weakest in the run.

Fortunately, those actors' limitations didn't ruin the series because it concentrated mainly on the past and present of Harry Pearce. Peter Firth rises magnificently to the challenge; his acting, always reliably good, becomes breathtakingly so. He, Nicola Walker and the exquisite Simon Russell Beale as Home Secretary, give the series the sparkle that Mr Brown and Ms Pulver could otherwise have entirely drained from it. I was afraid the Harry and Ruth relationship would be allowed to turn the series into soap opera, but although it takes a prominent role, the writers were skilled enough to avoid that trap. Alice Krige, Jonathan Hyde and Tom Weston-Jones are all excellent as Elena, Ilya and Sasha Gavrik respectively.

The ending to the series has not been popular with everyone; I am one of those who feels it was the right ending and appropriate to the overall tone of the show. Whatever the faults and flaws (and yes, there are plot holes, but when have there not been in 'Spooks' if you want to look for them?) of the other episodes, the acting in the finale, and especially in the last ten to fifteen minutes, is outstanding. Very difficult to watch the last few scenes without a little lump in the throat.

I have given the series five stars because it kept me riveted to the screen, made me laugh, made me cry, and gave me the privilege of watching some of our finest actors at the top of their game. A fitting farewell to a TV series that I'm sure I won't be the only one to miss enormously. Thank goodness for box sets!

As most (or all?) other reviewers, I have seen all of the series and all of the episodes within the series and have all of the series' DVDs which I hugely enjoyed and still enjoy, again, and again. So, I am certainly a big fan of the series, among many, many others. All of them have been hugely entertaining and exciting, however unrealistic the various episodes are. Another reviewer saw the series as a cross between James Bond/Jason Bourne and John Le Carré's The Man Who Came In From the Cold (I would have rather picked Tinker, Soldier, Soldier, Spy, but nevermind). There is something to that, but it's not quite it.

The last set of episodes has some - but only some - of the ingredients that have made all of the series so successful. However, it also has flaws which have developed and increased over the years and have become increasingly obvious.

The first one is about what "Johnsie" terms the tiny team (Section D) "saving the world" every ten minutes and episode after episode. This is, of course, one of these melodramatic effects that has kept us following the series over the years with bated breath. It has been mostly hugely effective as far as I am concerned: I have lapped it all up and loved every minute of it, like all good little fan, while knowing that this bears as much resemblance to reality as James Bond does. Over time, however, I felt that the series was increasingly relying on this sort of ploy to compensate other growing problems and that even these ploys were getting a bit worn and overused.

This was particularly obvious in Series 10, with a number of scenarios showing marked similarities in scenarios with previous episodes, as if someone had run out of any original ideas and was busy recycling ols recipes in the hope that they would be just as successful as the first time. There were also some almost desperate attempts to come up with something original by multiplying twists and counter-twists up to the point where it becomes rather implausible (and not only unrealistic, which, of course, is something that lay people like us are perhaps not the best placed to appreciate).

The second flaw that grows through the years relates to the Series tendency to get rid off its characters, preferably by killing them off one by one so that by the end of the Series, Harry is the only character surviving and still in place from Series 1. The death rate is so high as to make serving in the trenches during World War I or on the Russian Front during World War II seem like a picnic. I understand that this might largely have to do with actors, which after having shot a couple of series, may want or have to move on to something else and that bumping them off offers a more dramatic effect than having them "decommissioned". Series 10 carries this to new highs with the Team's last casualty being killed almost by accident, a bit like an afterthough, by being (improbably?) stabbed with a piece of glass that was conveniently laying around.

The third flaw is that this impressive death rate, which is much more dramatic but much less likely that having people drop out because of burnout, leads to numerous characters walsing in and out of the series. The problem with this particular series, as other reviewers have noted, is that the "new" ("newish") ones this time round (Erin,Dimitri and Callum) do not live up to the standards set by Quinn, Adam or Ross, for instance. I have no inttention to come up with disparaging comments regarding certain actors' performances. However, I am also among those who felt that this lot was not as "good" as the previous ones - "wooden" as another reviewer said. Another very improbable turn was the fate of Beth. Regardless of the quality of the actor's performance, can anyone believe that Harry, once he had become the boss again, would not have even tried to get back on a grid a proved and competent member of his team?

Another consequence of privileging systematic dramatic effects over plausibility is that the series appear increasingly implausible over time. This one reaches new highs with the burglary of the US embassy and the kidnapping of one of the CIA's senior men. Another piece which seems rather exagerated is the impression that each and every other service seems determined to do something to poor UK, starting by its bullying US allies and including, of course, the nasty and somewhat back-stabbing French. Of, and of course, ex-special forces from one country or another seem to creep out from under each stone to do some kind of horrible deed and intelligence officers seem to be capable to turn rogue just like that. In this series alone, we have ex-uk, ex-israeli, ex-Balkans (two or three of them, I can't remember). Here again, something that appeared in the first series has become a trend that has been so over-exploited that, to paraphrase "Johnsie", can become "bloody hilarious" at times.

So, despite loving each episode and each series, including this one, I am afraid that it is better to put an end to it, regardless of who is to blame for the slippage in standards. Besides, the repeated use of the same tired tricks with just a few extra twists to make them ever more implausible was reaching a point where, even for a convicted fan like myself, it was getting a pit painfull to watch.

So, I hugely enjoyed this one, even if a bit less than the others and my only wish and my real regret is that it is going out with a whimper, rather than with a bang...

I'm the sort of person who likes to own complete sets of things, and likes to see things through to the end. So, even though Series 9 had a lot of disappointments, I couldn't leave my collection incomplete, or pass up on the final six hours of one of British drama's strongest programmes of the last decade. How glad I am that I persevered. As always, do not read on if you don't want spoilers.

It feels as though the writers and team behind series 10 learned the lessons of the previous series. For a start, we have just 6 episodes rather than 9. Now undoubtedly this was done for budget reasons, but it also made the whole series tighter from a narrative point of view. Series 9 for me only took off when we got on with the Lucas North story arc. The more traditional standalone mission episodes felt like filler. This time, from the very off, it was clear that this series was going to be centred entirely on Harry, Ruth, and the secrets of the old spy's past. A canny choice, with Peter Firth and Nicola Walker (and Simon Russell-Beale as the Home Secretary) being the strongest actors in the ensemble, and with long-standing fans of the programme finally wanting some closure for Harry and Ruth.

That said, this series did have some touches of the old Spooks to it which had been missing last series. Episode 1, where Harry is communicating with an old spy friend via notes folded up and left in the spines of hardback books in a library, was equally old-school, and refreshing to see. Episode 3 sees Dimitri befriend the sister of a known anarchist, forging a relationship, living a cover life as an estate agent, and was very reminiscent of Tom and Zoe in the earlier series. Episode 4 with a jihadi bomber targetting a major tourist site in central London was a refreshing break from focussing on Russian, Chinese, and American enemies. The final episode ends Spooks with the essential conceit of any espionage fiction - the double agent, bluff and double bluff, wrong-footing the viewer so they don't know who or what to believe any more.

Whilst the undoubted stars of this series are obviously Harry and Ruth, the supplementary characters fare better than they did in series 9. Dimitri finally gets his chance to play the action-man spy, and does a passable job. Calum, the new tech guy, is a fairly one dimensional character (essentially he's the geeky one with a grumpy, deadpan wit) but it's one more dimension than Beth had last series! Even though he hadn't really impressed up to this series, I also managed to feel some sorrow when Tariq met his demise. Erin, I'll be honest, didn't live up to her promise. Having been "sitting in Harry's seat" (as the Home Secretary puts it) whilst he's been under investigation, and having decommissioned Beth in his absence, there was potential for conflict between her and Harry, but instead Harry gets slavish, obsequious obedience. Erin's also a single mother, but we get just two glimpses of this private life (incidentally, it seems unlikely a single mum would take on such a dangerous job that inevitably puts her young daughter at serious risk). But this might not be anyone's fault - it's not going to be an easy task to introduce a brand new character in a six-part series which is focussed on the established, long-standing characters. So, Erin did disappoint, but I don't see how they could have done it any better within the confines of this last series.

As always, this has the high production values of earlier series. The script isn't as poor as it was last time round (although, when examining a known bomber's bank statements, coming across a payment of £300 at a car sales garage, Calum saying "I think they've bought another vehicle" was pretty lame. You THINK?! What else would it possibly be? It would have been fine, confident old-school Spooks dialogue just without the "I think"). You have to forgive the slightly soap opera feel of the series, inevitable given that it centres around key figures from Harry's past and a not very surprising personal revelation at the end of the first episode.

A comment as well about the ending - now REALLY don't read this if you haven't already watched! I thought it was perfect. Harry and Ruth were never going to be allowed to have the 'happily ever after'. It might have made some viewers happy to see them waltzing off into the sunset, or settling down in a nice little cottage somewhere, but that's not realistic given their backgrounds and what they both know. This was reinforced by the short but smart reappearance of Tom Quinn. Despite having not appeared since the start of series 3, way back in 2004, and despite having been decommissioned, Harry can still call on him when he needs a quiet assassination carrying out. This demonstrates the reality - there's no escaping spy life. Even when you've left M-I5, you'll still get drawn back in (seen previously with Connie, Malcolm, and even Tessa way back in series 2). So of course Harry doesn't leave. Of course, even after the loss of Ruth, he returns to work. He'd never be able to escape his past, and what else does he have to live for anyway?

We watched the whole series across three nights, and we were gripped in the final episode. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, and it seems that for some people this series didn't work, but it was much stronger than series 9, and provides a fitting end to Spooks. Maybe wait until the price drops a bit, as full price for six episodes is a bit of a mickey-take, but if you've come this far with Spooks don't miss this fine finale!