The cast is pretty strong, from the top down to the bottom :-P
The chief of operations is tha A-Typical boss, bald, respected, not afraid to say what he feels and stick up for his beliefs.
The agents have the standard X-Files kinda balance, although the sexes are reversed.
I thought the second episode was going to focus on the female agent, but it doesn't appear so from the trailer, so maybe she will stay as second fiddle.
The techy guy looks like he might play the same part every ep, being the man in the van coordinating the spooks.
Lisa Faulkner's character, although at first appears to be the tea girl, looks like expanding in the second ep as an undercover operator (or at least for one ep). I had to smile when she used every opportunity to lean over a desk though :-P
And I'm looking forward to finding out why the lead agent hates that old woman in the office so much
Locations
clever use of "nice looking" buildings in London, very "Bugs" in style of sets, and a touch of TWINE's MI6 with the security doors and scanners.
First Ep Story
Ok, so not exactly what I was expecting... a Pro-Life group goes on a bombing campaign in protest, lead by a wanted American woman who performed the same things over on US soil, and now wants to commerate her husband who is about to be executed in the US for assassinating a doctor...
Plot Development
So first we think it's the Irish Loyalists up to their old tricks, and then it's a terrorist cell, and somehow, there's a bit of magic jump to a Pro-Life group.
The attempted turning of the woman from the pro-life cell was very well portrayed, but we never found out what happened to her.
The side story of the lead guy's relationship with the young mother was well executed, altough the end line from the little girl when he say her hair looks nice "you're a liar" was a tad disappointing. We didn't really need that. We knew he was feeling very guilty about his lover not knowing his real identity - yet?
The end "twist" where we discover the lead agent is really a "bastard" when he has signed the deportation papers to Florida- the death penalty capitol - instead of the bargained life sentence he made with the villian. You got the sense that he enjoyed that.
Technical
The mention of "echelon" in the first two minutes grabbed my attention, finally, a well researched spy series!!! Couldn't fault much, apart from the blocking device cop out (see "Direction")
Style
The use of "flo-mo" (a pet hate/love of mine as I used to work with the guys who created the technology as used in The Matrix) was at first an "Oh God they're using this" (negative) but by the end of the show, it worked extremly well. It helped shift the story and locations around, indication the time lapse between scenes.
Split screen - ok, very very very hard to get right and not be annoying. But, hat's off to the team, it was used very powerfully, although not to it's fullest extent I think (see "Direction")
The overal style is pretty luxuriant compared to most recent spy/intel based series, although still uses real world locales very nicely to bring it home that their work, although a different world to what the public live, is still very real, and in touch.
Direction
Pretty darn good, altough I had a few minor niggles, mostly with the bugging and the climax.
the bugging: Ok, so most of us know where they put them these days, but did we really need a minute long clip sequence of hands with screwdrivers in various household appliances? Far better to have focussed on the fact that they only just go taway with it, i.e. have one of the characters escape detection by climbing down the guttering while the targets walk in the door or something.
The climax: The "sorry guv, something's wrong, the jammer can only work for 30 seconds" was the only lame thing in the show. Far better, IMHO, to have it played out like this: The agent approaches the target whilst she is trying to remte detonate the bomb via a TXT message (a bit of a fashionable cop out, a real bomber would use an incoming call signal so that any phone could be used), the "sorry guv the jammer has packed up!" should have been heard in his earpiece AS she was sending it. Go to split screen, the major split showing the flo-mo camera circling the two characters during the moment, and the two splits showing the mobile screen sending status, and the other on the bomb. That would have been a tenser moment than simply her trying to send it and it not working, seriusly, if you were there would you only walk over to her whilst she is trying to detonate! No! You'd grab her phone! LOL
Conclusion
I like it - good show. The second episode looks good, with further character development of the main guy, and Lisa Faulkner looking like she'll get more than 5 mins screen time, playing a major role in the story. I'm not too convinced by her acting so far, and the line "if I had a boyfriend, or a guy I cared about", was obviously not rewritten after casting. Like yeah right, you wouldn't have them queuing up girl! Reality check please!
What could I compare Spooks with? A cross between "The X-Files", "Bugs" and "24".
Looking forward to hearing what everyone else thought about it!
