Jasmine Sahu is well suited with this new American drama exclusive to Dave.
Lois Cameron explains why this series is much more than your average cosy period drama.
The last episode of this series sees Sherlock and Moriarty attempt to solve the final problem with devastating consequences.
With major cast changes afoot, Jacob Martin ponders whether Being Human can live up to its own scarily high standard.
“Listen, given what you said, re: what I said, I don’t think we should be sharing late night tête-à-têtes. Let’s just stick to work.”
“This is work.”
“Good.”
After last week’s fast, furious and undeniably fun opening episode, Spooks tries something a bit different this week. Beth is undercover in a lift with six men, including a trained assassin, when the lift stops and two gunmen open fire, but Beth and one of the men survive by dropping to the ground. As the story unfolds, we follow several different perspectives of the same story as we get closer and closer to the truth of what really happened.
Structures like this are a risky strategy – unless the twists and variations are done well, seeing the same story from different perspectives can get pretty repetitive. And, here, Spooks falls into that trap. It might have worked better had it not been telegraphed so early on that Beth was hiding something – by the time we start to follow her, it had been so clear the first time round that there was more to Beth’s moments in Lucas’s story that the twists lose a lot of their power. The story picked up again when we got to Chapman’s account, but that section wasn’t long enough for the structure to work properly. Still, there was much to enjoy in the plot, particularly seeing Harry out and about on a mission, deftly telling Westhouse that his plans were over without actually saying it.
In terms of the overall arc of the series, I do hope they move the Lucas storyline on swiftly. I love seeing Richard Armitage play mysterious (although it’s taken until now to get the image of his horrible haircut in those photos out of my mind), but if this plot consists of Iain Glen contacting him, saying something enigmatic and calling him “John” every week, it’s going to get dull very quickly. Iain Glen is a brilliant actor, and deserves considerably more than that. At least Lucas appears to have better chemistry with former love Maya (Laila Rouass) than he did with ex-wife Elizabeta (Paloma Baeza) when he first arrived. I’m also not sure about Beth and her divided loyalties, although at least in Spooks there’s always the possibility that cast members can leave without any prior warning, so it keeps things interesting. There’d be a serious danger of Simon Russell Beale stealing all his scenes as the Home Secretary if he didn’t share most of them with Peter Firth.
On the Harry and Ruth front this week, we had a very sweet and amusing exchange on the phone. Peter Firth underplayed Harry’s disappointment that Ruth wasn’t calling for a “late night tête-à-tête” nicely, while I was longing for Ruth to say something at the end of their conversation. The frustration those two are putting me through could do some serious damage to my health.
While I wasn’t entirely convinced by the change in structure of this episode, Spooks is to be applauded for taking risks from time to time. I think they should take more risks like, say, two of their most important spies finally getting together. Or, you know, something like that.
You must log in to submit a comment.
