Gah! I got the boxed sets hoping they would have subtitles. BBC not like subtitles.
The NetFlix ones I watched I swore had subtitles?
Well, I popped in the DVD in my PC to see if it’s my DVD player’s fault, but it wants me to install some stupid copy protection junk before I can play on it.
I got them from Amazon. Back of box says distributed by Time Warner Cable for US and Canadian markets. That seems doubly strange because I thought anything going to Canada needed French subtitles. Let me dig up an old DVD player to see what’s wrong.
Ah, I see the problem. I’m an idiot. Thank you for your patience.
I announce with a degree of sadness that the show officially jumps the shark in season 5. It’s worth dling the first episode or two just to see the (ridiculous) resolution of season 4’s cliffhanger, but the show has simply lost it. I am on ep 5 now, and ep 4 was an abortion. Will struggle through to see if it somehow redeems itself, but I have doubts that that is possible.
New series kicked off tonight, all looking good so far even if the major plot line (bio weapons let loose in big cities) has been pretty much done to death in recent years.
Really late to the party on this one, and I’m still early with the show - we watched up until episode three of the first season last night. Holy crap, that fry cooker thing came out of nowhere. I don’t know what was worse - killing the character, or taking the time out to grotesquely maim her first.
The cat thing for me was saved by the A-Team montage of the team bugging the house, interspersed with shots of them blow-drying the cat. What can I say? I lol’d.
Good to hear it gets better, because God knows I’m desperate for some TV right now.
I enjoyed the hell out of seasons 1&2, and I would say 3 is kind of necessary if you enjoyed the first two. But I can’t recommend the rest of the series too much, as it became more like 24 to me. And I hate 24.
And that’s about all I’ll say, because I would hate to spoil anything. I look forward to your impressions of later episodes.
I’m just starting season/series 5, and the warnings about the show’s declining quality seem justified. Episode 4.10 had the show’s first moment of pure TV stupidity - Ruth tells crazy Angela Wells that Ruth’s step-brother loved Ruth instead of Angela, which causes Angela to press the detonator button for her bomb, which reveals that the bomb was never live. Why would she press the button if she knew it didn’t do anything? Why would Ruth try to goad her into pressing the button if they didn’t know the bomb was fake? Did I miss something, or was that as nonsensical as it seemed?
I really enjoyed the early seasons, when it was like a police-procedural show about spies, but it changed into something that feels more like sci-fi. They keep going to the conspiracy well, with conspiracies of increasing scope and decreasing credibility; the one that starts season 5 reminded me of Doctor Who when it’s in a dystopian mood. Also, I don’t think I’ve seen Sam since season 3, and losing a hot redhead is never a good thing.
Does the quality ever pick up again, or does it just keep getting worse?
In the first three or so seasons if someone does something from which it seems there is no return, then there is no fucking return. People leave or die or go to prison.
In later seasons they handwave a bunch of stuff and start putting Adam through soap opera-ish personal tortures. Ros always seems to show up again like a bad penny, mostly because the head writer loves the character.
Oh, and there is no shortage of government ministers vying for personal power at the expense of the people of Great Britain. Harry always brings them down, making room for the next old guy in a suit to try to screw him over. (Is that a spoiler? I think it’s more a general observation.)
In the early years, this was delightfully true for both the heroes and the villains. In the famous deep-fryer episode Harry is told to leave the main villain alone, but he has the guy killed anyway. Contrast that with the resolution of the conspiracy in 5.1-5.2, which has Adam saying something about “reprisals not helping the country”, therefore the conspiracy leaders won’t be held accountable, and guilty-of-treason Ros will get to join MI-5. Remember when Tom almost fired Ruth because she gave information to GCHQ, which was still her actual employer at the time? Tom’s head would have exploded if anyone had tried to recruit a traitor on his watch.
It’s unfortunate that Ros is a writer’s pet, because the character seems like a failed execution of an interesting idea. I’m assuming Ros was intended to be the Summer Glau of MI-5 (lethal, uncontrollable and possibly amoral character who works for the heroes), but the character isn’t interesting enough or dangerous enough to fill that role.
Check out the show Intelligence, aired in Canada. It’s a police-procedural show that becomes a spy-procedural show.
Spooks season 1 has the most violent scene ever. Pretty girls and fryolators don’t mix. Not gratuitous but i could not believe it when i saw it.
Another vote for Sandbaggers here. Even more interesting are the slightly suspect circumstances under which the show’s creator left this world…
I imported this after getting recs wrt MI5, and I’m not sure it holds up that well. I mean to try it again, but when I see other old imports with far superior production values it’s hard.
Hmm. Well it takes a few eps to fully get going, but in terms of spy-drama I think it’s pretty fantastic, and I only saw it a few years ago. And they certainly don’t skimp on the international locations.
I do, however, already have a soft spot for 70s BBC stuff.
Thanks for the tip on this show. Season 1 finally arrived from Amazon, and I’m really liking it, so I already ordered season 2.
Irrelevant Aside: I recognize almost every single actor/actress from science fiction shows on the Sci-Fi Channel. (I know it’s called something stupid like SyFy now, but it was called the Sci-Fi Channel back when it had non-wrestling and ghost related shows.)