Spooks

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Spooks is a British television drama series, produced by the independent production company Kudos for the BBC One network. The title derives from a popular colloquialism for spies, as the series follows the work of a group of MI5 agents. The programme was created and is chiefly written by David Wolstencroft.

1 Storyline
2 Cast
3 Episodes
4 Foreign sales
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

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Storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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Series 1 and 2

Image:Spooks003.JPGStarring Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Jenny Agutter and Peter Firth, the initial series of six one-hour episodes was screened in the spring of 2002. The series was a critical and popular success, combining glossy high production values with fast-paced action/adventure and spy intrigue storylines. The second episode was remarkable for the violent killing-off of a character (played by Lisa Faulkner) who had been presented to the audience as a regular in the first two episodes, surprising viewers who would thus have expected her to have been rescued. It did however anger many viewers, who had BBC phone switchboards jammed with complaints. Regularly drawing seven to eight million viewers, a longer second season of ten episodes was screened in 2003, again drawing praise, particularly for the dramatic cliffhanger ending of the season finale.

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Series 3

A third season, again of ten episodes, was transmitted on BBC One in the autumn of 2004, concluding on December 13th. Over the course of the season all three of the original leading trio, MacFadyen, Hawes and Oyelowo, left the programme, their departures staggered over the second, sixth and tenth episodes respectively. MacFadyen's character Tom Quinn was replaced by Rupert Penry-Jones as Adam Carter, drafted in from MI6 to help investigate Tom's disappearance in the first episode which carried on directly from the second season cliffhanger. After Tom's departure Carter joined the team permanently, with his wife Fiona (Olga Sosnovska) augmenting the line-up following Zoe's (Hawes) departure. Oyelowo's character, Danny Hunter, was killed off in the dramatic season finale. Although fan response to the changes of leading cast was generally negative and the season garnered varied critical reactions, viewing figures remained steady and a fourth season was commissioned.

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Series 4

The fourth series of Spooks began transmission on Monday 12th September 2005 on BBC One at 9pm with the first of a two-part story. The next day (13th September) the second episode was shown, before the following week Spooks assumed a 9pm Thursday slot, a break from the Monday 9pm slot the previous series had traditionally occupied.

The opening two-parter provided the series with two new regulars in Zafar Younis (Raza Jaffrey, whose character had actually debuted in the final episode of series three) and Juliet Shaw (Anna Chancellor). However, it was also a controversial storyline, as it featured terrorists bombing central London, something that in reality had taken place two months earlier on July 7, after the episodes had already been shot. According to The Guardian newspaper the day the first episode aired, "The similarities were sufficient to cause head of drama Jane Tranter and new BBC1 controller Peter Fincham to agonise over whether to drop the episodes." ^[1] The episodes eventually aired unedited, although before both instalments of the two-parter the BBC One continuity announcer warned viewers that they featured scenes of terrorist bombing in London which some viewers might find disturbing.

Episode seven saw the departure of Fiona Carter, as actress Olga Sosnovska was pregnant during filming and elected to leave the programme. In a by-now traditional shocking exit, Carter was abducted and shot dead by the ex-husband she had thought had been hanged several years previously. Her character was replaced in the Spooks set-up by Miranda Raison as Jo Portman, a new arrival at MI5 who had been recruited by Adam in the previous episode.

The final episode ended with what was by now a traditional seasonal cliffhanger, with Adam Carter shot and apparently badly wounded, and Harry Pearce facing the gun of the same assassin after they had fallen for an elaborate plot concocted by a vengeful ex-MI5 agent. Their future is yet to be decided, but the BBC has confirmed that a fifth series of Spooks will be shown in late 2006.

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Cast

The programme regularly attracts popular actors, with actors such as Hugh Laurie, Andy Serkis, Anton Lesser and Anthony Stewart Head having appeared in episodes of the first three seasons. Tim McInnerny appeared in a recurring role during the third season.

The main characters include:

Harry Pearce, Head of counterterrorism department, MI5 - Peter Firth (2002-)
Tom Quinn, senior case officer, Section B - Matthew Macfadyen (2002-2004)
Zoe Reynolds, junior case officer, Section B - Keeley Hawes (2002-2004)
Danny Hunter, junior case officer, Section B - David Oyelowo (2002-2004)
Tessa Phillips, senior case officer, Section K - Jenny Agutter (2002-2003)
Adam Carter, senior case officer, Section B - Rupert Penry-Jones (2004-)
Fiona Carter, seconded to MI5 from MI6 - Olga Sosnovska (2004-2005)
Ruth Evershed, analyst seconded to MI5 from GCHQ - Nicola Walker (2003-)
Sam Buxton, junior case officer, Section B - Shauna Macdonald (2003-2004)
Jo Portman, junior case officer, Section B - Miranda Raison (2005-)

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Episodes

The series airs with no credits, to maintain an atmosphere of the anonymity of real-life spies. Individual episodes have no official titles, though there are internal working titles. The US version airs with official titles that sometimes, but do not always, match the working titles. When different, American titles are in parentheses.

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Series 1

Thou Shalt Not Kill
Looking After Our Own
One Last Dance
Traitor's Gate
The Rose Bed Memoirs
Mean, Dirty, Nasty (Lesser Of Two Evils)

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Series 2

Legitimate Targets
Nest of Angels
Spiders (Hackers)
Blood & Money
I Spy Apocalypse
Without Incident (President's Visit)
Clean Skin
Strike Force (Military Strikes)
The Seventh Division (A Very Corporate Coup)
Smoke and Mirrors (Pit of Secrets)

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Series 3

Project Friendly Fire
The Sleeper
Who Guards The Guards?
A Prayer For My Daughter
Love and Death
Persephone
Outsiders
Celebrity
Frequently Asked Questions
The Suffering of Strangers

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Series 4

Surreal World (The Special: Part I)
The Possibility of a Mole (The Special: Part II)
Campaign of Terror (Divided They Fall)
Infiltration of a New Threat (Road Trip)
A Journalist, a Minister and a Conservative Group (The Book)
Beyond the Cell (The Innocent)
Where Trouble Lies (Syria)
Traitor in a Friend (The Russian)
The Sting
Diana

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Foreign sales

In the United States, the series is screened on A&E, a specialty cable channel, under the title MI-5. This is partly due to the fact that the word 'spook' is an old racist slang term for African Americans, and the network did not wish to risk the possibility of causing offence, and partly because in the US, 'spook' is more generally associated with the CIA. Series 3 began in the U.S. immediately after the U.K. run ended and wrapped up with Episode 10 on March 12 2005. The first two series were shown on A&E as a single 16-episode season. Due to the need to insert commercial advertising breaks, the episodes shown on A&E are heavily edited versions, with each 59-minute installment being edited down to roughly 45 minutes for US showings, often causing some narrative problems for American viewers. The full versions are, however, available on DVD in that country.

A&E has not yet officially announced whether it will show Series 4 to the U.S., nor if it does if it will air immediately after it ends in the U.K. as it did with Series 3, which would mean that for American viewers Series 4 would begin around January, 2006. In what may be a sign that they are abandoning the show, reruns of all 3 prior Series can only be seen in random order on Mondays at 4am Eastern time. However, a December 1, 2005 article in the Akron Beacon-Journal (http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/living/13299839.htm) says that Series 4 will be shown on A&E, but not until the fall of 2006, which is when Series 5 will be airing in the U.K.

In Canada, the series is also screened uncut and unedited on BBC Canada, a specialty digital cable channel, under its original BBC title Spooks. BBC also shows Spooks on their entertainment channel BBC Prime in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The program is also aired as Spooks in Australia and New Zealand on ABC and TVNZ respectively. In Sweden it airs as Spooks on SVT1, in France the programme is called MI-5 and broadcast on Canal Plus and in Finland it's called Erikoisjoukkue on YLE TV1, although the continuation of the series to season 3 is not sure. In Belgium Spooks was broadcast on the Flemish public channel Canvas and in the Czech Republic as MI5 on ČT1. In Israel it was aired under two different names (MI-5 and Intelligence Agency) on the Israeli Broadcasting Authority Channel 1 and on cable.