Spooks Season 7
Dec. 30th, 2009 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFor those of you keeping track, yes, I skipped season 6 on universal advice of it being horrible and because kathyh, who presents me with seasons of Spooks on a christmassy basis, agreed on this and gave me the seventh one this year. So, here's what I thought.
It felt very retro, not in a bad way. What was it that Lucas North said about Harry and Arkady Whats-was-his-name, "you two are so old school it hurts"? By making the Russians the big bad of the season, and playing the "inside traitor" game again, this felt very much like a Cold War era year, not Fleming, of course, but Le Carré. It also made for a tightly written storyline from start to finish, opening with a supposed cooperation between Harry and the head of FSB which turned out to be a set-up and ending with a set-up that turned into an actual cooperation. What remains lost is the "we're doing shady things; do we have the right to?" type of episodes they had in the first two or three seasons, but that's been the case for a while.
Bullett points:
- alas, poor Adam, I knew him well. Figures he'd be killed off as opposed to retired, a la Tom Quinn. I actually liked Adam more than Tom, but I was mostly sorry for the kid; that silent scene where Harry tells the boy really got me, and I thought, here is a child who lost both his parents in relatively short order to their jobs, is this a future time bomb or what?
- Ros is thoroughly fantastic all through the season. (I really really wish she'd have gotten a better introduction episode than the opening two parter in s5.) Also, you've got to love the way she succeeds Adam, not by waiting for Harry to promote her, but by simply saying "I want section D; give it to me". It makes for a very different dynamic because both Tom and Adam had the mentor/father figure thing going on with Harry, whereas Ros doesn't, and accordingly doesn't vye for his approval.
- Lucas North, as the newest male hunk, has the advantage of being played by Richard Armitage and thus is more attractive than either Tom Quinn or Adam Carter, but he's quite well written, too. I mean, if it were me, they could have played the uncertain loyalties thing a bit more because it was too clear from the get go Lucas hadn't really be turned, but there you go. I also approve of the fact he didn't get Tom's and Adam's job and that Ros did; this, too, made for a refreshing change in the office.
- poor Ben, I knew him not very well at all. He basically got the same plot Saf did in s5 - infiltrate Al Quaida, get emotionally close to a footsoldier - but because I knew Saf far better, the emotional resonance wasn't nearly as strong.
- when Connie turned out to be the mole of the season in the last but one episode, I groaned and thought, what does this show have against middle-aged women (Tessa remains unforgotten, then there was the woman with the Diana plot which has to remain the show's low, poor Ruth got written out of the show, and where is Juliet anyway?), but then they used her the way they did in the season finale, and I was mollified. Not sure I buy "I wanted a balance of superpowers because the Americans are not to be trusted as the only one" as a motivation, but then again, there is precedent. Plus her scenes with Ros were excellent, and so was her saving the day.
- the nuclear bomb as a season finale threat was a tad more suspenseful because of the ill-fated spin-off Spooks: Code Nine which has a nuclear bomb going off in London as its origin story
- loved that the Russian spies had no intention of dying in a nuclear blast, either, and were willing to help preventing that, but did make sure to keep their convenient hostage afterwards
- because Torchwood: Children of Earth was such an unofficial Spooks crossover, I kept thinking of it watching this and was on the look out for Frobisher and Bridget Spears. Lo and behold, unless I'm mistaken Bridget's actress did show up in another role. *g*
kathyh, who presents me with seasons of Spooks on a christmassy basis, agreed on this and gave me the seventh one this year. So, here's what I thought. It felt very retro, not in a bad way. What was it that Lucas North said about Harry and Arkady Whats-was-his-name, "you two are so old school it hurts"? By making the Russians the big bad of the season, and playing the "inside traitor" game again, this felt very much like a Cold War era year, not Fleming, of course, but Le Carré. It also made for a tightly written storyline from start to finish, opening with a supposed cooperation between Harry and the head of FSB which turned out to be a set-up and ending with a set-up that turned into an actual cooperation. What remains lost is the "we're doing shady things; do we have the right to?" type of episodes they had in the first two or three seasons, but that's been the case for a while.
Bullett points:
- alas, poor Adam, I knew him well. Figures he'd be killed off as opposed to retired, a la Tom Quinn. I actually liked Adam more than Tom, but I was mostly sorry for the kid; that silent scene where Harry tells the boy really got me, and I thought, here is a child who lost both his parents in relatively short order to their jobs, is this a future time bomb or what?
- Ros is thoroughly fantastic all through the season. (I really really wish she'd have gotten a better introduction episode than the opening two parter in s5.) Also, you've got to love the way she succeeds Adam, not by waiting for Harry to promote her, but by simply saying "I want section D; give it to me". It makes for a very different dynamic because both Tom and Adam had the mentor/father figure thing going on with Harry, whereas Ros doesn't, and accordingly doesn't vye for his approval.
- Lucas North, as the newest male hunk, has the advantage of being played by Richard Armitage and thus is more attractive than either Tom Quinn or Adam Carter, but he's quite well written, too. I mean, if it were me, they could have played the uncertain loyalties thing a bit more because it was too clear from the get go Lucas hadn't really be turned, but there you go. I also approve of the fact he didn't get Tom's and Adam's job and that Ros did; this, too, made for a refreshing change in the office.
- poor Ben, I knew him not very well at all. He basically got the same plot Saf did in s5 - infiltrate Al Quaida, get emotionally close to a footsoldier - but because I knew Saf far better, the emotional resonance wasn't nearly as strong.
- when Connie turned out to be the mole of the season in the last but one episode, I groaned and thought, what does this show have against middle-aged women (Tessa remains unforgotten, then there was the woman with the Diana plot which has to remain the show's low, poor Ruth got written out of the show, and where is Juliet anyway?), but then they used her the way they did in the season finale, and I was mollified. Not sure I buy "I wanted a balance of superpowers because the Americans are not to be trusted as the only one" as a motivation, but then again, there is precedent. Plus her scenes with Ros were excellent, and so was her saving the day.
- the nuclear bomb as a season finale threat was a tad more suspenseful because of the ill-fated spin-off Spooks: Code Nine which has a nuclear bomb going off in London as its origin story
- loved that the Russian spies had no intention of dying in a nuclear blast, either, and were willing to help preventing that, but did make sure to keep their convenient hostage afterwards
- because Torchwood: Children of Earth was such an unofficial Spooks crossover, I kept thinking of it watching this and was on the look out for Frobisher and Bridget Spears. Lo and behold, unless I'm mistaken Bridget's actress did show up in another role. *g*
