Visit the official Doctor Who website

Visit the official Doctor Who website
Look to the future

Asylum seekers...

Asylum seekers...
Refuge of the Daleks

Doctor Who picture resource

Doctor Who picture resource
Roam the space lanes!

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website
Step back in time

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood
Armed and extremely dangerous

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures
Fearless in the face of adversity

Call on Dani’s House

Call on Dani’s House
Harmer’s a charmer

Intercept the UFO fabsite

Intercept the UFO fabsite
Defending the Earth against alien invaders!

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse
Programmable agent Echo exposed!

Hell’s belles

Hell’s belles
Naughty but nice

Love Exposure

Love Exposure
Flash photography!

Primeval portal

Primeval portal
Dressed to kill or damsels in distress?

Charmed, to be sure!

Charmed, to be sure!
The witches of San Francisco

Take on t.A.T.u.

Take on t.A.T.u.
All the way from Moscow

Proceed to the Luther website

Proceed to the Luther website
John and Jenny discuss their next move

DCI Banks is on the case

DCI Banks is on the case
You can bet on it!

On The Grid with Spooks

On The Grid with Spooks
Secret agents of Section D

Bridge to Hustle

Bridge to Hustle
Shady characters

Life on Ashes To Ashes

Life on Ashes To Ashes
Coppers with a chequered past

Claire’s no Exile

Claire’s no Exile
Goose steps

Vexed is back on the beat!

Vexed is back on the beat!
Mismatched DI Armstrong and bright fast-tracker Georgina Dixon

Medium, both super and natural

Medium, both super and natural
Open the door to your dreams

Who’s that girl? (350-picture Slideshow)

Sunday 10 September 2006

All Spooked Out!



“Spooks” returns next weekend, on BBC ONE, to begin its fifth season with the now traditional opening two-part story. Currently enjoying reruns of last year’s season on BBC THREE, now halfway through, and with the box set of the same season available from last Monday, September is definitely a good time to be a fan of this high octane spy drama. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a grown up version of the much underestimated 90s’ action adventure series “Bugs”. And neither that show nor this one would have existed without seminal 60s’ series “The Avengers”. That’s the lineage sorted!

“Spooks” went through a bit of a dull patch during its third season when it lost its three leading characters, Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen), Zoe Reynolds (Keeley Hawes) and Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo). But the production team seemed to start over with season four, despite opening with Danny’s funeral, in an excellent two-parter, “The Special”, that timely dealt with a terrorist bombing campaign in central London and featured a spunky performance from guest star Martine McCutcheon as Tash. She demonstrated such balls that, at the end of the story, I was disappointed she didn’t become a series regular.

All was not lost though as by the end of episode five of season four, an equally adroit heroine, Jo Portman (Miranda Raison), was invited to join the “Spooks” team by new leading man Adam Carter (Rupert Penry-Jones). I love her introductory story, “The Book”, despite the plot holes and having to suspend disbelief over the number of coincidences, simply because the whole thing is carried off with such panache. Curiosity having got the better of her in following Adam, Jo shows great presence of mind when setting off car alarms to alert our agents to the proximity of assassins about to enter an MI5 safe house and, again, in dumping her mobile phone in the assailants’ getaway car in order that they may be traced. Beauty and intelligence are a winning combination.

2 comments:

Stuart Douglas said...

Yep, got it in one Tim - 'panache' is what makes Spooks utterly watchable.

It's got such style that it carries off even the most implausible plot-lines (even the fact that they *always* introduce an indentikit replacement for a charcater an episode before that charcater leaves).

I'm hoping the new season has something to match the episode (whose name eludes me) in which the team were locked down and unsure if a reported terror attack which had wiped out a large part of London was genuine or just a test scenario.

TimeWarden said...

I was hoping, in the fifth season, that Jo Portman would move centre stage, to replace Fiona, but the publicity stills suggest otherwise. She does get to work out in the field more this time around, which I'm looking forward to. Sometimes you just take to a character. The look of wonderment on her face when she enters Thames House for the first time, in episode six of season four, was everything Rose's should have been on first entering the TARDIS!