Don’t bring Harry

BBC spy drama Spooks will come to an end this autumn on BBC One with a final six-episode tenth series.

Jane Featherstone, chief executive of Kudos Film & Television, the company who created Spooks, calls it “a fitting end to a much-loved show”.

The final series of Spooks will focus on Section D’s Head of Counter-Terrorism Sir Harry Pearce KBE (Peter Firth) and a guilty secret that could destroy his relationship with Senior Intelligence Analyst Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker). Joining the established cast, Robin Hood’s Lara Pulver plays an ambitious and hungry new spook determined to make her mark! She replaces Beth Bailey, portrayed by Sophia Myles in the last season. Also on board, for its final outing, are (Borg Queen) Alice Krige and the excellent Jonathan Hyde, of Titanic fame, whom I best remember in BBC Two’s period courtroom saga Shadow Of The Noose.

Spooks is responsible for making household names of numerous actors including Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, Shauna Macdonald, who went on to star in the superb British horror flick The Descent, Rupert Penry-Jones and Miranda Raison, recently seen in Sugartown, to mention but five!

“We’ve followed the arc of Harry and Ruth’s personal story,” said Featherstone. “I think the team have brought Spooks to a natural end,” she concluded.

Spooky Goings-on!

By strange coincidence, I purchased Series Five of “Spooks” on DVD, earlier in the week, the very day I saw the trailer, in the evening, for Series Six for the first time, sandwiched between “Heroes” and “Heroes Unmasked”! I’d been wondering, for a while, when it was actually going to start as, this time last year, it was already up-and-running. I was beginning to think that the BBC were going to hold over the new series until the New Year but not so!! “Spooks” is back on our screens from the middle of this month…

Spooks - Episode One
Tuesday 16 October 2007
9.00-10.00pm
BBC ONE

Story Line

Adam and Zaf target a UK-bound terrorist with a train bomb in Tehran. As the operation goes catastrophically wrong, the team learn of the darker goals of their mission and the influence of a mysterious external agent, with the repercussions of the Tehran blast felt on the streets of London.

Episode 1/2 - In-Depth Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

The team are sent undercover in Iran when they receive intelligence that suspected terrorist Mehan Asnik is plotting a bomb attack on London. Their aim is to blow up Asnik in Tehran, making it look like a terrorist attack, but just as the team are about to detonate the charge, a train packed with civilians pulls up yards from the target. With the operation at a critical stage, the team must make a split-second decision that could cost many innocent lives.

Spooks - Episode Two
Tuesday 16 October 2007
10.30-11.30pm
BBC THREE

Story Line

The highly-contagious plague-like virus unleashed by the Tehran blast is on the streets of London and a wounded, infected Zaf has been captured, possibly already killed. As the team races against time to stop the virus spreading, they corral and infect top international spies in a bid to discover a vaccine.

Episode 2/2 - In-Depth Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

With Britain facing a deadly plague, Harry rounds up key spies from nations likely to be involved in the plot, and begins an interrogation that he hopes will lead him to the vaccine. But these are some of the world’s most hardened characters and they are going to need a lot of persuading. Ruthless agent Connie James is charged with obtaining the information, and what better weapon to use against her captives than the threat of infecting them with the virus itself?

Principal Cast

Adam Carter - Rupert Penry-Jones
Harry Pearce - Peter Firth
Ros Myers - Hermione Norris
Zafar Younis - Raza Jaffrey
Jo Portman - Miranda Raison
Malcolm Wynn-Jones - Hugh Simon
Connie James - Gemma Jones

Story Lines & Synopses © radiotimes.com

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.