Spooks. Better than ever?
AFTER the poor run that was season six, I wasn't expecting too much from the seventh series of Spooks.
But, two episodes in, it's obvious to see that it's back on form.
And, in hindsight, perhaps the tinkering which wrecked series six will prove to be the thing that keeps Spooks going for many series to come.
Think about it, who had high expectations for Spooks this time? Even the BBC played the promotional stuff in quite a low-key way - I don't even remember anyone appearing on the BBC Breakfast sofa with Bill and Sian/Kate/whoever he's not flirted with yet to discuss the series.
Last series was a bit of a disaster. Partly because it focussed so heavily on the threat posed by Iran, and I'm not sure many of us really saw Iran as threat. But the biggest problem with Spooks was they turned it into one, long storyline spanning a dozen episodes or so, rather than the self-contrained stories spanning, at most, two episodes, which has worked so well in the past.
Then, of course, was the dreadful spin-off on BBC Three earlier this year, which had more in common with S Club 7 than it did with grown-up Spooks.
That's all forgotten, though, now we're two episodes into the new series. Bloody excellent. With an emphasis on the bloody. We've lost the star of the last couple of series, Adam, after he was blown up saving London from a terrorist bomb.
And in comes his replacement, Lucas, released by the Russians after eight years as a captive there. Which also brings us in neatly with our new enemy, the Russians. Who, if Spooks is to be believed, are trying to plot middle-eastern terrorist acts in the UK to show Britain that relying on oil isn't the way forward - Russian gas being the alternative, of course.
Let's face it, we all love a nasty Russian. And by returning to a familiar format, and a familiar enemy, Spooks appears to have returned to a winning formula
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Remote Control
Er, yeah. Haven't you spotted that it's rather obvious British State propaganda? Exactly the same sort of jingoistic tripe they're dishing up with yet another James Bond film.
You have to hand it to the BBC though for carrying out such an Orwellian inversion of history. According to "Spooks", the Russians are conspiring with al-Qaeda terrorists to attack Britain. In reality, wasn't it Britain who (along with America of course) actually founded al-Qaeda as a means of attacking Russia?
But of course, you're not allowed to mention that, are you?
Is it really British propoganda? My information is that the British Government hate it, refuse to co-operate with it and generally would rather it wasn't there. That said, the BBC does tend not to like to rock the boat, which makes it all the more surprising that Spooks is still here....