Spooks, second season
Dec. 28th, 2005 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakTo my great relief, I finished my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spy_santa story (due on January 6th at the latest). It’s off to be beta’d now.
And thus, time for a second season of Spooks review. Yes, I managed to lay claim on the family DVD player long enough.
The show continues to be excellent, but back when I was watching the first season, everyone was raphsodizing about the later ones, and I can’t see a quality jump upwards yet. I missed Tessa, despite her two brief appearances who just weren’t enough for me. It’s not just that she pinges one of my fannish archetypes, the manipulative, smart and ruthless woman (mostly, but not always middle-aged) one. The dynamic without her is different; Harry is the unchallenged king, where before he was king and Tessa was queen. Yes, nominally he was her superior, but still. She was his equal in terms of brains, age and experience. Tom and Harry have their differences, but the challenge isn’t nearly the same, and more along the traditional mentor-student lines.
Ruth, the new character, fulfils the smart and middle-aged criteria, and I can see why![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathyh and others love her so much; she’s endearing in her quiet, book-loving and lamp-damaging way. But she’s also not just Harry’s but also Tom’s subordinate, and, well, it’s not the same thing.
*mourns for dynamic with smart ruthless middle-aged woman IN CHARGE*
The other new character, Sam, is perky enough to be a Dr. Who companion. Otherwise not much to say about her.
And lastly, Christine Dale, the CIA representative in London. Whom we saw quite a lot of this season, thanks to her UST, then RST with Tom. She’s a character I feel I ought to love, given my preferences, but somehow I don’t. If I have to pinpoint why, I keep coming back to the episode where she got rid of Tom’s vengeful ex girlfriend Vicky. Now sure, Vicky was reacting over the top to being dumped. She was also clearly signalled as the rebound girl Tom wasn’t going to remain with from the start. And yes, I can see why her posting flyers with Tom’s phone number and address picturing him as a call boy was a potential career killer. (Though bad me found it very funny, too, and did not feel sorry for Tom.) Still, what Christine did, arresting Vicky and letting her witness some CIA goons vandalizing her flat and planting fake evidence which would have landed Vicky in goal if she hadn’t left the country and promised not to bother Tom again – that bothered me on a level which, say, Tessa running phantom agents and putting poor Zoe in a horrible position in season 1 did not. Or even Tessa this season causing the death of Mariella the Colombian just to outmanouevre Harry, probably we weren’t meant to think of that as anything but Tessa really having “the morality of a puff adder”, to quote Harry, whereas I suspect we were meant to approve of Christine’s action. Which reminded me so much of certain real life events and the fact the CIA (or other secret services, but the RL thing I was associating when watching that episode really was done by the CIA) does that kind of thing. I was sympathizing with Vicky and seeing Christine as a bully here, and that stuck.
The outstanding episode of the season, to me, was the second one. Okay, admittedly I’m a tad prejudiced because it featured Siddig el Fadil, aka Alexander Siddig, i.e. Julian Bashir of DS9. (Then again, my favourite in the first season wasn’t the ASH episode, despite my fondness for Giles.) But I thought it did a great job of tackling the subject of Muslim fundamentalism as a source of terrorism, which must be incredibly difficult to do without simplifying things one way or the other. Making not one of the MI-5 gang but the Arab guest character the hero of the story was inspired, and making him a double agent whose loyalties the audience couldn’t be sure about until briefly before the regulars were even more so. Our ability to trust and sympathize without truly knowing was just as challenged as Tom Quinn’s. And hey, who am I kidding – letting Sid’s character show up in the middle of the night in Tom’s bedroom the way Garak (and later Sloan) did in Bashir’s was just lovely, lovely meta and you can’t tell me it wasn’t done intentionally. They gave him some nice Garakian zingers, too.
“You mean the right colour.”
Quite. I was expecting him to survive, by the way, because I had known he guest stars in season 2 and somehow had gotten the impression he was recurring, so the end was quite a shock. In a good way, though; it was completely logical within the story.
The episode I liked least was unfortunately the finale. Which ticked me off on a massive scale. “Hero unjustly suspected by everyone” stories can be done, but it takes a lot to make them interesting because we the audience know the hero is innocent anyway, and it makes the other regulars look stupid. Okay, the last few episodes had increased the tension level between Harry and Tom, but I still have a hard time believing Harry would not suspect a set-up. (Now if it turns out Harry and Tom arranged the whole thing in order for Tom either to go undercover or fake his death to investigate better, I take back the logic complaint, but I still don’t like the season finale any better.) As for Danny and Zoe – their reaction seemed to be off as well. Coming across as the “kids” Tom had called them who were running to and thro between Harry and Tom being told what to do. Then there is the villain. Now if something morally questionable Tom had done this season would have come back to bite him in the behind in the form of a nemesis, it would have worked for me. Or a return appearance of the Not!IRA his Irish contact, offed in the season opener. But this guy was a bit like Barty Crouch Junior in the book version of Goblet of Fire, without even the Pensieve scene to explain who the hell he was before the big reveal in the last act.
Basically the only thing I liked was that the teaser used The Third Man in the background. Which, of course, deals with someone having faked his own death, among other things. Ah, Graham Greene, he who together with John Le Carré basically created morally ambiguous spy fiction. Mmm, Carol Reed’s direction. Oh, Orson Welles. Yes, inspired and thematically relevant quotation of a classic, and please, show me more Third Man clips. Because the actual episode is such a let down. Instead of being shattered by the Tom vs Harry, Zoe and Danny showdown, I was annoyed and fast forwarded through his dramatic walk into the sea.
spy_santa story (due on January 6th at the latest). It’s off to be beta’d now. And thus, time for a second season of Spooks review. Yes, I managed to lay claim on the family DVD player long enough.
The show continues to be excellent, but back when I was watching the first season, everyone was raphsodizing about the later ones, and I can’t see a quality jump upwards yet. I missed Tessa, despite her two brief appearances who just weren’t enough for me. It’s not just that she pinges one of my fannish archetypes, the manipulative, smart and ruthless woman (mostly, but not always middle-aged) one. The dynamic without her is different; Harry is the unchallenged king, where before he was king and Tessa was queen. Yes, nominally he was her superior, but still. She was his equal in terms of brains, age and experience. Tom and Harry have their differences, but the challenge isn’t nearly the same, and more along the traditional mentor-student lines.
Ruth, the new character, fulfils the smart and middle-aged criteria, and I can see why
kathyh and others love her so much; she’s endearing in her quiet, book-loving and lamp-damaging way. But she’s also not just Harry’s but also Tom’s subordinate, and, well, it’s not the same thing. *mourns for dynamic with smart ruthless middle-aged woman IN CHARGE*
The other new character, Sam, is perky enough to be a Dr. Who companion. Otherwise not much to say about her.
And lastly, Christine Dale, the CIA representative in London. Whom we saw quite a lot of this season, thanks to her UST, then RST with Tom. She’s a character I feel I ought to love, given my preferences, but somehow I don’t. If I have to pinpoint why, I keep coming back to the episode where she got rid of Tom’s vengeful ex girlfriend Vicky. Now sure, Vicky was reacting over the top to being dumped. She was also clearly signalled as the rebound girl Tom wasn’t going to remain with from the start. And yes, I can see why her posting flyers with Tom’s phone number and address picturing him as a call boy was a potential career killer. (Though bad me found it very funny, too, and did not feel sorry for Tom.) Still, what Christine did, arresting Vicky and letting her witness some CIA goons vandalizing her flat and planting fake evidence which would have landed Vicky in goal if she hadn’t left the country and promised not to bother Tom again – that bothered me on a level which, say, Tessa running phantom agents and putting poor Zoe in a horrible position in season 1 did not. Or even Tessa this season causing the death of Mariella the Colombian just to outmanouevre Harry, probably we weren’t meant to think of that as anything but Tessa really having “the morality of a puff adder”, to quote Harry, whereas I suspect we were meant to approve of Christine’s action. Which reminded me so much of certain real life events and the fact the CIA (or other secret services, but the RL thing I was associating when watching that episode really was done by the CIA) does that kind of thing. I was sympathizing with Vicky and seeing Christine as a bully here, and that stuck.
The outstanding episode of the season, to me, was the second one. Okay, admittedly I’m a tad prejudiced because it featured Siddig el Fadil, aka Alexander Siddig, i.e. Julian Bashir of DS9. (Then again, my favourite in the first season wasn’t the ASH episode, despite my fondness for Giles.) But I thought it did a great job of tackling the subject of Muslim fundamentalism as a source of terrorism, which must be incredibly difficult to do without simplifying things one way or the other. Making not one of the MI-5 gang but the Arab guest character the hero of the story was inspired, and making him a double agent whose loyalties the audience couldn’t be sure about until briefly before the regulars were even more so. Our ability to trust and sympathize without truly knowing was just as challenged as Tom Quinn’s. And hey, who am I kidding – letting Sid’s character show up in the middle of the night in Tom’s bedroom the way Garak (and later Sloan) did in Bashir’s was just lovely, lovely meta and you can’t tell me it wasn’t done intentionally. They gave him some nice Garakian zingers, too.
“You mean the right colour.”
Quite. I was expecting him to survive, by the way, because I had known he guest stars in season 2 and somehow had gotten the impression he was recurring, so the end was quite a shock. In a good way, though; it was completely logical within the story.
The episode I liked least was unfortunately the finale. Which ticked me off on a massive scale. “Hero unjustly suspected by everyone” stories can be done, but it takes a lot to make them interesting because we the audience know the hero is innocent anyway, and it makes the other regulars look stupid. Okay, the last few episodes had increased the tension level between Harry and Tom, but I still have a hard time believing Harry would not suspect a set-up. (Now if it turns out Harry and Tom arranged the whole thing in order for Tom either to go undercover or fake his death to investigate better, I take back the logic complaint, but I still don’t like the season finale any better.) As for Danny and Zoe – their reaction seemed to be off as well. Coming across as the “kids” Tom had called them who were running to and thro between Harry and Tom being told what to do. Then there is the villain. Now if something morally questionable Tom had done this season would have come back to bite him in the behind in the form of a nemesis, it would have worked for me. Or a return appearance of the Not!IRA his Irish contact, offed in the season opener. But this guy was a bit like Barty Crouch Junior in the book version of Goblet of Fire, without even the Pensieve scene to explain who the hell he was before the big reveal in the last act.
Basically the only thing I liked was that the teaser used The Third Man in the background. Which, of course, deals with someone having faked his own death, among other things. Ah, Graham Greene, he who together with John Le Carré basically created morally ambiguous spy fiction. Mmm, Carol Reed’s direction. Oh, Orson Welles. Yes, inspired and thematically relevant quotation of a classic, and please, show me more Third Man clips. Because the actual episode is such a let down. Instead of being shattered by the Tom vs Harry, Zoe and Danny showdown, I was annoyed and fast forwarded through his dramatic walk into the sea.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 08:19 pm (UTC)The good news is that Season 3 is absolutely fantastic and restored (maybe even surpassed) my Season 1 love.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 08:24 pm (UTC)As for Christine: hate is too strong a word for my feelings, but like I said, I don't like her, and I have the uneasy feeling I'm supposed to, which makes a lot of the Tom/Christine storyline fall flat for me.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 09:15 pm (UTC)I liked Ruth right away but I didn't really fall for her character til S3. By the beginning of S4 she was one of my favorite characters on the show.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 09:32 pm (UTC)Do you have a way to access S3 or 4?
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 10:38 am (UTC)I missed Tessa, but I do love Ruth to bits, especially in Season Three. (I have yet to see Season Four, due to being a deprived antipodean.) If only we could have Tessa and Ruth at the same time.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 01:36 pm (UTC)Phew. That was one of my fears as well.
If only we could have Tessa and Ruth at the same time.
Quite. That would be ideal.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 12:19 pm (UTC)The outstanding episode of the season, to me, was the second one.
I thought you might enjoy that one *g*. It was a very good episode anyway but Alexander Siddig was the icing on the cake. In some ways I wish his character had survived as he would have been a wonderful recurring guest.
Ruth, the new character, fulfils the smart and middle-aged criteria, and I can see why kathyh and others love her so much; she’s endearing in her quiet, book-loving and lamp-damaging way.
She gets stronger as she goes along. She's also quite capable of using her very ordinariness to delude people into underestimating her.
whereas I suspect we were meant to approve of Christine’s action.
Not sure. The usual attitude of British spy series (and novels) to the CIA is highly ambivalent so I suspect it was meant to be an open question as to whether what Christine did was right or not.
The episode I liked least was unfortunately the finale.
It was exciting at the time, but in retrospect not the series finest hour.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 01:31 pm (UTC)