Posts Tagged ‘bbc1’
It’s coming: Spooks Series 8
The brand new 8th series premiers this Wednesday at 9pm GMT on BBC1. It’s fair to say that Spooks is one of my most favourite TV series and certainly one of the very best things that the BBC airs each year.
From the BBC press office:
Award-winning drama Spooks is back in production, for a fantastic, high octane eighth series and is set to return to BBC One this autumn.
Following the dramatic climax of series seven, viewers will be on the edge of their seats, eagerly waiting to find out which of the country’s finest spies will return to their screens in the Kudos Film and Television production.
The critically-acclaimed last series saw the appointment of ice cold Ros Myers (Hermione Norris) to Head of Section D and the release of Lucas North (Richard Armitage) after eight years in a Russian prison.
Harry Pearce’s (Peter Firth) elite team of spies were forced to quickly adapt to their new dynamic following the death of Adam Carter, but there was no time to mourn their colleague as the Russians descended on London and a mole within Section D was discovered.
In the explosive finale of the series, old school spy Connie James was exposed as the Russian’s insider and, in a race to save London from a nuclear explosion, she paid the ultimate price for betrayal, sacrificing herself to save Ros and Lucas.
Although London was saved from disaster, it’s not over for Section D as Harry is missing in action following a meet with the Russian intelligence services, the FSB, and was last seen being bundled into the boot of a car…
Source: BBC
Preview from Radio Times:
British television isn’t much cop at straight-down-the-line thrillers; writers and producers get bogged down in characterisation and delivering right-on messages and lose sight of the fact that thrillers should be – yes – thrilling. Which brings us to Spooks. Those in the know are sniffy about it, claiming it’s nothing like MI5. I should hope not; it’s torrid, preposterous and frequently ridiculously overheated. And I love it to pieces, because Spooks is a rarity: a genuinely exciting, madly engaging drama that grabs you by the wrists and simply won’t let go. At the end of the last series it looked as if the game was up for spy boss Harry (the splendid Peter Firth) after he was kidnapped by a rogue band of utter rotters. As we start a new series, things still look bleak – and they get bleaker still when a familiar face arrives back on the Grid and lives are in danger. I’m being deliberately coy here, but there are simply too many surprises. It’s best just to buckle up and prepare yourselves for a trademark dizzying Spooks funfair ride as stern people in black stride down corridors and no one trusts anyone else. Part two is on BBC3 at 9:00pm on Friday.
Source: Radio Times
Box of delights (aka what I’m watching on TV this week)
I’m not actually a big watcher of TV. That said, I was looking through the tv guide showing what’s on over the next 7 days and there is a lot that caught my eye. Namely:
Sunday
South Pacific
Sunday 14 June
8:00pm – 9:00pm
BBC26/6 – Fragile Paradise
Documentary series. The South Pacific is still relatively healthy and teeming with fish, but it is a fragile paradise. International fishing fleets are taking a serious toll on the sharks, albatross and tuna, and there are other insidious threats to these bountiful seas. This episode looks at what is being done to preserve the ocean and its wildlife.
I’ve watched most of this series since it started and have really enjoyed it.
Monday
The Secret Life of the Airport
Monday 15 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC41/3 – Preparing for Take Off
From the makers of the hugely enjoyable The Secret Life of the Motorway, this three-parter explores the history of civil aviation. Nowadays, airports are steel and glass behemoths with art installations and fancy cafes, but Britain’s first was more spartan. Forgetting the teeny-tiny matter of runways, excitable architects wanted to build slap-bang in the centre of London. Although in the end it was to Croydon that pioneering toffs (flying was the preserve of the wealthy in the 20s) trooped to be weighed alongside their baggage. Crammed full of archive footage and quirky anecdotes, this should be shown in airport lounges, so disgruntled travellers can be grateful they’re not in tents – as Heathrow passengers were for the first decade of its existence. Oh yes, and again last year: during the disastrous opening of Terminal Five.
I am a big BBC4 fanboi and love their interesting documentaries on subjects that wouldn’t get airtime on the terrestrial channels. This will be good.
Goodbye London Aerodrome
Monday 15 June
10:00pm – 10:35pm
BBC4Glyn Worsnip presents a history of RAF Hendon. Originally called London Aerodrome, this extraordinary airfield has been an RAF station since 1918. Current and former pilots talk about their memories of Hendon.
Tuesday
Occupation
Tuesday 16 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC11/3
A word to the wise: you’ll need to take a deep breath before sitting down to Occupation, which runs nightly until Thursday. Peter Bowker’s visceral drama about British soldiers struggling to cope with life during and after the invasion of Iraq is shattering. We’re immediately pitched into the hell of combat in an unbearably tense sequence that introduces us to the characters at the heart of Occupation: Sergeant Mike Swift (James Nesbitt), Corporal Danny Peterson (Stephen Graham) and Lance Corporal Lee Hibbs (Warren Brown). As the men enter a hospital, there’s a grenade attack that leaves a girl grievously injured. Swift becomes a media hero when he returns to Britain with the child, who is treated at a British hospital. For entirely different reasons, all three men’s ties with Iraq are complex and deep: Swift has a strong romantic and emotional bond, Peterson needs the buzz of war and Hibbs wants to do the right thing for his country. All three central performances are towering and Bowker’s superlative script grips right from the start. Make no mistake; this is an important, unmissable piece of drama.
The BBC have been airing a lot of adverts for this. Major 3 part drama about soldiers in Iraq – before, during and after the invasion. Looks like it will be powerful stuff and not for the faint hearted.
Personal Affairs
Tuesday 16 June
9:00pm – 10:10pm
BBC31/5 – A Decent Proposal
BBC3’s big new summer series wears its Sex and the City colours proudly, even giving it a cheeky namecheck. Office quickies, dream sequences, filthy innuendo…they’re all here, dappled with crazy bits of animation. The attention-seeking opener introduces us to willowy Grace, gobby Lucy, fame-mad Midge and catty Nicole, and their romantic entanglements, while the male characters are the kind who are barely visible when they turn sideways. It’s a mad storm of different styles, but it may just capture the Carrie Bradshaw crowd.
This looks interesting. Kind of a UK ‘Sex and the City’. It clashes with Occupation, but everything is repeated so I’ll just record it. The thing to remember about BBC3 is most stuff on this channel is deliberately quirky and off the wall. Take Being Human, for example. Was like a humourous horror.
Wednesday
Occupation
Wednesday 17 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC12/3
All three of Occupation’s soldiers have returned to Iraq in the second part of Peter Bowker’s stunning drama. Their reasons for going back differ, but each has an overwhelming need to be in the crumbling, chaotic country. For tiny, restless scouser Danny Peterson (the brilliant Stephen Graham), it’s simple: “The madness here – I get it.” He is, you feel, a man on his own private road to hell. For Mike Swift and Lee Hibbs (James Nesbitt and Warren Brown, both memorable) there are more complicated emotional reasons. Hibbs needs a sense of purpose – that he’s doing something useful. Swift needs to find the love of his life. Around them, Iraq is awash with coalition money supposedly for rebuilding, yet the cash never seems to get to where it’s needed the most. More dangerously, the insurgency is gathering momentum, which has appalling consequences for one of the trio. Be prepared for a heart-rending, harrowing climax to the episode.
Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer?
Wednesday 17 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC41/2
Architectural historian Jonathan Foyle explores the paradoxes of Henry VIII’s cultural life, which looked back to medieval chivalry, but also took in the new humanism of the Renaissance. Foyle is good at the detailed examination of Henry’s buildings such as King’s College Chapel in Cambridge and extends into looking at tapestry and the paintings of Holbein. What gives it all a distinctive twist is that this journey into Henry’s past progresses against the backdrop of contemporary London.
Thursday
Occupation
Thursday 18 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC13/3
The searing effect of Occupation is cumulative, as anyone who has watched the first two episodes will know. So the tension and the pervading sense of a world spinning out of control are heightened as we reach the final instalment. It’s December 2005, but there is no Christmas cheer for Danny, Mike and Lee (Stephen Graham, James Nesbitt and Warren Brown, a trio of actors for whom no praise can be high enough). Emotions – ours and the soldiers’ – are ratcheted to breaking point as catastrophe piles upon catastrophe and lives are fractured for ever. This is a very adult drama about the terrible reality of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath, so there can be no happy endings and Peter Bowker’s script is grown up enough to leave its characters, and its audience, weighed down with sadness.
Psychoville
Thursday 18 June
10:00pm – 10:30pm
BBC21/7
The League of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton join forces once more as writers and stars of this weird, black comic drama…and at this point it would be handy to give a plot precis but, frankly, I have no idea what’s going on. A handful of apparently unlinked, disparate people in different parts of the country are sent wax-sealed letters bearing the words “I know what you did”. But what did they do? No idea, though the recipients include a barmy midwife obsessed by the doll from her childbirth classes (Dawn French), a telekinetic dwarf, and a wildly inappropriate children’s entertainer, Mr Jelly (Shearsmith) – a cross between the evil clown from Stephen King’s It and the League of Gentlemen’s infamous creation, Papa Lazarou. There are some funny bits, the gothic atmosphere is very Royston Vasey-ish, and the cast is stellar, but I suspect Psychoville will take a wee while to get going properly.
I’m not a huge watcher of comedy but this kind of highly eccentric stuff I’ll probably like. I always found League of Gentlemen and Little Britain very watchable.
Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil
Thursday 18 June
11:30pm – 12:30am
BBC4One of the most momentous events in the UK’s postwar history has to be the discovery of large reserves of oil and gas in the North Sea. A country saddled with balance-of-payment problems was able to reap many benefits from the windfall, but what has been the impact on today’s economy? This three-part doc promises a fresh perspective on the origins of the find 40 years ago and a look at how the tide has ebbed in recent years, beginning with the story of risk-taking and technical innovation that brought the oil ashore.
Friday
The Fallen: Legacy of Iraq
Friday 19 June
12:30am – 1:10am
BBC4Don’t miss this updated re-showing of Morgan Matthews’s extraordinarily moving film from last year, for which he rightly won a best-director Bafta. It commemorates the 300-plus British troops lost in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, one by one, through frank interviews with their surviving family members – the parents, siblings and (most heartbreakingly) children of those who died. The result is a remarkable portrayal of the way grief can shred families. It’s a giant mosaic of bereavement and loss, every piece of which is powerful in itself. That may sound grim but there are moments of humour and wisdom here too. Yes, at times The Fallen is almost too much to bear, but if you don’t feel up to the full four hours, it’s worth watching as much as you can handle.
This is the update to the 3 hour documentary I blogged about last year. Immensely powerful. Whether you like it or not, these people are fighting (and dying) in our name. Ordinary people whose deaths will shatter the families, friends and communities they leave behind.
Leonard Cohen Live in London
Friday 19 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC4When the Canadian singer-songwriter and poet started performing again last year after five years in seclusion as a Zen Buddhist monk and the disappearance of his retirement fund, he received rave reviews. If you haven’t seen this performance, catch it now and marvel at his spare lyricism. Live in London is a parade of old and recent favourites, delivered with authority, tenderness and humour. It’s followed by a 1973 BBC film combining an interview, biography and concert footage plus there’s also a tribute show featuring famous fans.
Leonard Cohen – Songs from My Life: Omnibus
Friday 19 June
10:00pm – 11:10pm
BBC4Portrait of Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen, originally recorded in 1973. Featuring interviews, archive film and live performances from London, Paris, Athens and New York.
What Leonard Cohen Did for Me
Friday 19 June
11:10pm -11:40pm
BBC4A celebration of the career of Leonard Cohen, one of contemporary music’s most revered singer-songwriters. The Canadian poet and novelist has gradually transformed over the years into an international star. Contributors include Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Ian McCulloch, Arthur Smith, Kathryn Williams and Paul Morley.
Source: All listings from The Radio Times website.
Review: Spooks (Episode 8 – Series 7 – BBC) Series Finale
For once, Spooks forgets its fancy gadgets for a good, old-fashioned and exciting chase involving lots of running and hiding in London’s disused Underground network. The city is in danger of annihilation, again, this time from nasty Russians, disaffected former KGB agents who have been biding their time since the fall of Communism before detonating a nuclear bomb in the capital, using one of a huge network of “sleeper” agents. These people, we are told, have infected the highest levels of the government and the police service, so Harry and the rest of the MI5 gang can’t trust anyone. There’s a typically nerve-shredding Spooks end-of-series race against time as Lucas and Ros (Richard Armitage and Hermione Norris) try to dodge a terrifyingly efficient Russian “kill squad”. And it’s not just themselves they have to look after – they are forced to babysit the Grid’s traitor, whose identity was revealed last week. Source: Radio Times
A very James Bond-esque final episode I thought with a suitable cliff-hanger to finish off the series (that has big implications for the next series, for sure!).
A portable nuclear device is to be let off by a sleeper cell that trumps even Sugarhorse by its sheer scope and audacity – for it has been asleep for 25 years, a relic of the KGB era.
Connie eventually saved the day but paid the ultimate price for her duplicity. I think the circumstances surrounding her being a double agent lacked much credibility but this is TV so you have to live a little.
I’m also unsure (well, doubtful) that the FSB have infiltrated London to the extent they show it on Spooks. So many of the plot lines (around terrorism and even the credit crisis) have mirrored day to day life that you are naturally left wondering what is likely fact and what is more likely to be complete fiction.
Overall a great series and very much a reason for staying in on a Monday.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
Review: Spooks (Episode 7 – Series 7 – BBC)
This is the penultimate episode of the series and it was certainly a good one.
It starts with Harry, who we know from the very end of the last episode has been set up as the double-agent. The file says it’s him.
He’s drinking whiskey and looking stressed. He knows they will be coming for him. Mozart plays in the background. He looks up and sees the light shade starting to shake.
He calls Lucas and tells him to look in his bedside drawer for a file and to seek out someone in Russia. Lucas finds the file. Harry tells him he’s about to be accused of being the double agent and that Lucas must get to Moscow to meet one of the last true Sugar horse double agents for the info.
Sure enough, suddenly the windows are smashed and what looks to be the SAS have stormed his apartment and he has a hood thrown over his face.
Next thing we know he has been taken in to custody by Mi5 and is in a maximum security cell – presumably at Thames House (hq of Mi5). Richard Dalby (his superior) questions him briefly saying they have all the evidence it’s him. He denies it. Dalby uses an interrogator who uses psychological interrogation (assisted by drugs) to try and get him to talk. The interrogator (who looks very sinister) goes on and on about betrayal etc.
Ros and the rest of section D are told that Harry is a traitor. They also have a listening post put into their office by internal security meaning all of their work and actions are monitored.
Lucas is now in Moscow and meets the Sugar horse operative who tells him to reach another contact in Moscow who has further information. He tells her to get to London as they will come for her. Not long after he leaves the woman’s apartment they come for her and shoot her dead.
Lucas ends up in a strip bar in a seedy Moscow street. Turns out the stripper is a Sugar horse operative. Whilst frolicking with him she warns him that there are FSB in their vicinity. She tells him the file he is after is downstairs, hidden in the kitchen in a drawer. She causes a distraction as he goes down to find it.
In London, Ben has gone downstairs to the paper archive to check some files on Sugar horse to see who had signed them out. It turns out that Hugo Prince (who Connie – pictured – had a relationship with) had signed out a large number of files at one point. He keeps digging to see what he can find.
Lucas locates the file which contains photographs and a microfilm. He opens the dossier and the information reveals that Connie is the true mole. After all that. He places an urgent call to London but can’t get through. He finally reaches Ben and tells him urgently that Connie is the mole. He then gets cut off as FSB arrive and a fight ensues.
In London, Connie has gone down to the paper file to ‘help’ Ben. She finds him in an agitated state. She offers to make them tea whilst he gets on with searching through files. As he tries to busy himself with files, she walks up behind him, takes out a long thin silvery file and then quickly slits his throat. He stumbles to the floor with blood gushing everywhere. He is dead.
She leaves the archive, locking the door.
Harry is going through psychological torture at the hands of the interrogator with bright lights etc. They’re trying to break him down. The Home Secretary has briefly visited and said that his betrayal will end very badly for him.
Harry says he is ready to admit guilt and the names of the full Sugar horse network in Russia (what they’re really after) if he can speak to Ros.
Ros sees him and he admits guilt. He says he did it as part of a Russian renaissance. She leaves him in something of a state of shock. She can’t quite believe he’s admitted it.
As she returns to her office, her mind replays the word renaissance and at last the penny drops. She asks Malcolm to find everything they have on ‘renaissance’. They find a closed down operation that is 20 years old in which Harry and Connie were in Moscow trying to turn agents. It suddenly becomes obvious that she is the true mole.
In the meantime, Harry has written down a load of names which represent the Sugar horse network of double agents. It now cuts to Connie on the balcony of the building speaking to Bernard Qualtrough in Moscow, giving him the names. Bernard tells her she will be welcomed with open arms by the motherland and she must make her escape, now.
As Connie packs to leave and escape the building, she is confronted by Ros and then surrounded by security. She admits guilt but says it’s too late, she has passed the names to Russia and all those named will be killed. Harry walks out from the shadows and tells her that all of those names are not the true double agents. So the people the Russians will kill are ordinary FSB, and not double agents. So she has been foiled.
She snarls at him and looks every bit like the killer she is. He asks her why she did it. She says she doesn’t need to explain her actions but that she did it because this country is a joke, acting as a fig leaf of democracy to the imperialism of America. Russia is the truly great nation, etc.
So that’s that! The Sugar horse plotline is finally unveiled, along with the real mole.
On Monday it’s the final episode.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
Review: Spooks (Episode 6 – Series 7 – BBC)
Not a bad episode. Yes, I have finally caught up with the two I was behind on (I’ve been behind for four weeks now, finally up to speed).
I can’t be bothered to write up too much as the plot lines are too complex.
Anyway, this episode focused on Israel and Palestine. A peace summit is to take place in London. The Foreign Secretary doesn’t want anything to go wrong. Section D have to protect the key players.
The UN representative is pretty crap. There is a shady Mi6 operative who it transpires the Foreign Secretary has employed to knock off the UN rep who isn’t up to the job of brokering peace (at least I think that was the plot line).
A teenage boy witnesses the Mi6 operative using this special gun that knocks the electrics out of any vehicle. Mi6 come after him but not before Lucas has rescued the boy and his mother and they go into hiding. Turns out Mi6 are after the child, not for the gun, but for the rucksack holding the gun (the boy nicked the rucksack and gun from The Mi6 operative who had chased him after he’d witnessed the murder).
The item they were really after was a USB stick and on it were photos taken by a paparazzi (the guy killed initially by the Mi6 agent) because there were incriminating photos of the Mi6 agent threatening and roughing up the UN rep… and in the photos the Foreign Secretary was there! So she was party to it.
Turns out the Mi6 agent isn’t such a bad guy, though went ‘wild’ some time ago. This is a covert black op, sanctioned by the Foreign Office. This is because they think the only way to get Palestine and Israel to agree to peace is to do it their way, not using the UN who aren’t up to brokering the deal (at least I think that was it).
This was really a background story to the emerging plot line which is that of Sugar horse. We know that Sugar horse was a maximum security operation going back 20 years in which a handful of Mi5 operatives had infiltrated the most senior levels of the (then KGB) FSB. Harry is waiting on an operative to come from Russia with details of who the Mi5 mole is. He asks Connie, who he now trusts, to intercept the Sugar horse double agent who is coming in to London. Trusting her, he himself sets up a low level Russian player to be the fake FSB mole who he meets in London (this is far too confusing to understand unless you watch the series).
To cut a long story short. They manage to prevent the assassination of the UN rep by the Foreign Secretary (who sees the error of her ways, I think). The bad news is that, having been given new identities for their own protection, the mother and son are meant to board a Eurostar train to Spain via Paris. However, the son goes off the rails, feeling betrayed by Lucas – who he had trusted – and so goes running off through the station. He knew too much information. He had seen the photo (from the USB drive) showing the Foreign Secretary colluding with the Mi6 operative roughing up the UN rep. So as Lucas chases after the teenager, a bullet is fired (by the Mi6 agent, in the distance) and the teenager is shot dead. An unpleasant scene.
The emerging Sugar horse plot line is Harry (pictured) getting home after a hard day at work, putting Mozart’s Requiem on, opening the file to see just who the mole is (like he wouldn’t have looked at that at the office…) only to see his own name/face plastered throughout the file.
According to the file – he is the mole.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
Review: Wallander (Episode 1 – Sidetracked – BBC1)
I am not, as a rule, a fan of crime dramas – but this was good.
It is a very dark Scandinavian thriller and felt – probably because it was set in Sweden – quite unlike the multitude of British equivalents. It’s based on the crime thriller by Swedish author Henning Mankell.
The storyline was dark, opening with detective Kurt Wallander (played by Kenneth Branagh) approaching a young and terrified woman in a rape field. She pours petrol over herself and sets herself on fire.
The main plot involves a series of murders – the victims being ’scalped’. Very dark stuff as a web of prostitution, child abuse and government and police corruption are revealed.
The best bit was the cinematography itself – it had that vivid 1970s Fujifilm feel to it. Very intense colour rendition which really did add something – the blues and greens especially. Also, it’s set in southern Sweden (though it’s in English) and all the signs and visual text are in Swedish. That alone made it feel very different to a standard UK crime thriller.
Sweden just feels… quite different to the UK. Having been there myself for the first time earlier this year (to a conference) – it does having something about it I can’t quite put my finger on. I’d like to go back, for sure. There is a starkness about it (a bit like Scotland) that does pull you in.
Most of all this reminded me of the movie Se7en which was very dark and haunting – and which I always found gripping.
I’ll certainly be watching again next week. Decent 1.5 hour chunk of TV for a Saturday evening (there are three in total).
A good review of it on Times Online. More about Mankell, the author, also on Times.
Overview of Wallander on the BBC
Episode 1 – Sidetracked
Episode 2 – Firewall
Episode 3 – One Step Behind
Survivors (BBC1)
Anyone else watching Survivors and if so, do you think it’s any good?
I can’t make up my mind. I feel I’ve invested 2.5 hours of my time in it (over 2 episodes) so I ought to follow it to the end. I remember being very disappointed by that other (similar) drama that was on a while ago with a related plot (though that was pre-apocalypse; this is post).
Survivors is OK so far. I wouldn’t review it as yet as only 2 out of 6 episodes have so far aired. It’s watchable but the clichéd characters don’t do a huge amount for me. Abby, the ‘mother and home-maker’, is about as clichéd as they come. Matriarchal, only sees the good in people, is a fighter, etc, etc. I found her acting in the last episode pretty unconvincing (she’s trying to find the man who may lead her to her son).
As dramas go it’s too mainstream for me (in its rendering). However, I do like the storyline (because it’s basically a modern day Lord of the Flies) but am just not convinced by the acting. It’s the people you’d expect to see in Casualty or Hollyoaks suddenly cast in a Heroes-esque drama and for me that doesn’t work.
Anyway, this is a remake of the 1970s version which was carried over 30 episodes or something. I do wonder if that was better and also the book.
Imagine being the only survivor of a disease that kills every member of your family, that kills lovers, strangers, friends, nearly everyone you’ve ever met.
You are among the lonely few to live and now you must start over in a strange new world where everything that was once safe and familiar is now strange and dangerous.
Set in the present day, Survivors focuses on the world in the aftermath of a devastating virus which wipes out most of the world’s population. What would we do? How would any of us cope in a brave new world where all traditional 21st Century comforts – electricity, clean running water, advanced technology – have disappeared?
These are the questions faced by the bewildered but resilient group of survivors at the centre of the drama. It is an opportunity for new beginnings, but with no society, no police and no law and order, they now face terrible dangers – not just the daily struggle for food and water but also the deadly threat from other survivors.
“Survivors is about what it means to be human,” explains writer and executive producer Adrian Hodges. “It asks questions about our nature and confronts us with our deepest fears. When everything else is stripped away, would we band together and find the best in ourselves, or would we fall apart and retreat into barbarism and savagery? Survivors is about adventure, fear, love, loyalty and friendship. But above all, it’s about new hope.”
Survivors, by Adrian Hodges is a re-imagining of the classic 1970s BBC drama series which was based on the novel by Terry Nation. It launched in April 1975 and ran for 38 episodes over three series.
Source: BBC Survivors website
Review: Spooks (Episode 4 – Series 7 – BBC)
A decent episode with a lot of twists and turns.
A senior member of Al-Qaeda, Muhammed Khordad, comes to London, asking to negotiate with MI5. He reveals that an extremist wing of al-Qaeda will be setting off a bomb that afternoon in London. He will tell MI5 where it is in exchange for the public pardoning of two al-Qaeda prisoners. The Home Secretary reluctantly agrees, and a statement is broadcast. But Khordad is not happy with it and refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the bomb, leaving Harry’s team to find it before it explodes. Meanwhile the Russians, in a test of loyalty, have ordered Lucas to ensure that the bomb explodes. Source: BBC
The episode opens with Lucas intercepting a ‘Level 1 asset’ (extensive Al-Queda connections) at a London mainline station. Ros is communicating with Lucas via phone. He intercepts the asset but is in turn intercepted by an FSB officer who stabs the Middle Eastern contact who then dies. In his dying breath he says the name Muhammed Khordad and reveals a sim card. It transpires that Khordad is the 3rd ‘most wanted’ by the CIA. We learn that he tortured 3 Mi6 officers in Pakistan.
Connie asks Jo how it’s gone with the councillor but Jo implies she hasn’t used their services yet, though she’s obviously still traumatised.
They make contact with Khordad via the sim card who says he will be in touch by text message. He gets back in touch, saying he wants to meet them.
Harry meets the Home Secretary who won’t sanction a meeting with Khordad publicly but grudgingly agrees via a system of total deniability that Mi5 can meet Al-Queda’s number 3.
Khordad won’t meet without a human rights lawyer present so Mi5 brings one in and the lawyer, Harry and Ros head to a secret meeting with Khordad.
At the meeting, they’re using high tech gadgets including a radioactive ring that emits nano radiation that can be transferred when you shake hands – so they can keep tabs on Khordad.
Jo is jostled by someone in the street who she glimpses briefly. She has flashbacks to her experience at the hands of torturers and thinks it may be one of them.
The meeting with Khordad takes place. Khordad reveals that Al-Queda will let off a bomb in central London at 3pm. He will only give more information about the bomb if the Home Secretary delivers a statement condemning the incarceration by the Americans of two recently released suspects from Guantanamo Bay.
Harry and Ros meet with the Home Secretary. He refuses to allow the release as it will damage relations with the Americans who had incarcerated the British Muslims.
Qualtrough (from last episode, he’s an ex-Mi5 officer who is now retired) calls Harry, saying he thinks he knows where the leak about Sugar Horse is coming from.
Khordad is now on the move again and the imprint of the radioactive ring means Mi5 can track his movements. Jo traces him but he double-bluffs as he knew he was being followed.
Harry meets with Qualtrough and tells him that Dalby wasn’t the leak on Sugar Horse. He also says that Hugo Prince (the other suspected leak) was not the leak, and that Connie and Hugo were having an affair. The implication is that Connie may be the weakest link.
The Home Secretary is seen on television pardoning the ‘Guantanamo two’ who had been imprisoned by the Americans. Khordad calls Harry to say that the ‘pardon’ was not enough and therefore the bomb will go off.
They decide to use CO19 to pick Khordad up as he leaves the British Museum.
Khordad is bundled into the back of a blacked out car. They assume it’s CO19 but they’re still 90 seconds away so it can’t be them.
Lucas goes to his ex-wife Elisabeta who now works for FSB, to get more information on the bomb in case the Russians are involved. She reveals that the Russians have contacted the bombers and will bring it forward by 10 minutes to test Lucas. If he is seen to feed this information back to Mi5, the FSB (what was the KGB) will know he is a traitor to their cause (i.e. a double-double-agent) and they will likely kill both him and Elisabeta, his former wife who is now a London-based FSB spy.
Mi5 finally ascertain where Khordad is and who has taken him. It’s the CIA. Harry calls Laurie, the CIA bureau chief, who denies knowledge. Harry and Ros make there way to the unmarked CIA ’substation’. Laurie refuses to release him as the Americans have wanted him for a long time. Harry threatens to go to the press and unveil American duplicity in the bombing. She caves in, Harry meets with Khordad and takes him out of the CIA building – to the fury of the Americans.
Khordad finally gives up the location of the bomb.
The decision is made to let the bomb go off at the venue but they will fake it – detonating the bomb and evacuating the guests via a back door so it looks like the explosion is genuine. Ros and Lucas rush to the venue (a wine bar on Victoria Street, popular with MPs) to defuse the bomb. “What are you best at – the real thing or faking it??” Lucas says to Ros. James Bond style, they detonate the bomb with moments to spare by putting it in the microwave.
The fake bomb goes off but nobody is hurt. The Russians are fooled into thinking Lucas is still loyal.
Laurie threatens Harry saying the Americans are not pleased and that there will be repercussions. Harry implies that London no longer plays to Washington’s tune.
Harry and Khordad meet in sectret, agreeing they can ‘do business’. Khordad passes him top secret Iranian missile information. There are Iranian missiles capable of reaching UK targets. Khordad does this because he wants justice in Palestine and the Americans out of the Middle East. So the number 3 in Al-Queda is working with Mi5 to eliminate the more dangerous and volatile lower levels within Al-Queda.
The final scene is Harry drinking whiskey with Connie (he’s trying to work out if she’s the mole), they’re then interrupted by Ros asking them to come and look at the television. Khordad is in a plane crash in the Ural mountains (where the Americans have an airbase) – the implication being they have shot him down.
A complex episode, my understanding not being helped by an ex-colleague who called me whilst I was watching! But it was a good and interesting storyline (incredibly current in light of recent events, as the new president at the Whitehouse was alluded to).
UK residents can watch again on iPlayer.
More about CO19.
More about Mi5.
Pictures of Richard Armitage taken from Spooks series 7.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
Review: Spooks (Episode 3 – Series 7 – BBC)
For some reason I enjoyed this more than last week’s episode. It still had lots of twists and turns – but it was somehow more satisfying. I did find the inner-city accent of the Jihadi to be quite fake, but I can live with that.
The main plot line is the discovery of British based Al-Qaeda bomb plots, the aim of which is to maximise civilian casualties. Ben is working undercover in the cell that is tasked with detonating the bomb. Initially the expectation is that it’s a dummy run but it soon transpires this is the real thing.
The plot is complicated because Marlin, a Pakistani intelligence agent, is giving the tip-off. Past series dictate that those who give tip-offs can’t usually be trusted.
The even more complex plot line occurs when Lucas has flashbacks to his torture at the hands of Russian FSB captors. He was subjected to water boarding (note that he endured this in real life too) and one of his torturers had asked him about ‘Surgarhorse’, a keyword he isn’t familiar with. After having a flashback he confronts Harry and asks him if he knows what it is. Harry denies any knowledge.
Next thing we know, Harry is in the suburbs in an old book store where his old mentor Bernard Qualtrough works. He tells Bernard he needs him to work on a covert operation because, we infer, ‘Sugarhorse’ has some connection with an Mi5 top secret operation and potentially a mole at the highest echelons of the service – probably in connection with one of Harry’s superiors, called Dalby.
Back on the central plot line, the dummy run turns into the real thing and there are four bombs to be neutralised. Ros does a sterling job as Head of Section D, especially in Harry’s absence as they can’t get hold of him. Connie urges the shut-down of the mobile network but Ros resists. To cut a long story short, they manage to neutralise three of the bombs. The other (real) terrorist who Ben was a faux-accomplice to ended up getting shot.
Unfortunately, the fourth bomb does detonate and Jo (pictured – already traumatised from her ordeal with Adam Carter (RIP) at the hands of torturers) – is at the centre of this one. Two CO19 officers are killed in the explosion but Jo had managed to clear the area of civilians. She herself is again, deeply traumatised, as she is caught in the blast itself – though survives.
By the end they realise that Marlin had set them up and that the handler they’d been chasing had not been the Mr Big. Marlin phones through to Lucas and asks to meet. They do. Marlin acknowledges to Lucas that he is probably a dead man in Mi5’s eyes now. However, he also tells Lucas that he himself is NOT the Mr Big, but yet another ‘Russian doll’. He says he had to organise to oversee the bombing as his superiors had got to his family and this was the only way to protect them. He draws a gun… and shoots himself through the neck.
Ben is deep undercover and discovers the terrorists are planning a bombing campaign in London. He accompanies them on a dry run but soon discovers that this is no practice and that he is minutes away from innocent members of the public getting killed. Ros and the team face a desperate race against time to prevent the terrorists’ bombs going off but, with four bombs set to detonate, it’s an almost impossible task. Jo will stop at nothing to save London from devastation, landing herself at the centre of a catastrophic situation.
This was episode 3/7 and the series is continuing to deliver. Highly recommended.
Watch again on BBC iPlayer (UK residents only) by clicking here.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
Review: Spooks (Episode 2 – Series 7 – BBC)
R.I.P. Adam Carter
Episode 2 begins ‘8 hours’ after episode 1, in the wake of Adam’s death.
Ros wastes no time asking Harry to give her ’section D’; she wants to assume Adam’s role as head of the division. She goes back to her flat and tears it up, throwing the flat screen television across the room in a fit of rage. She’s in mourning.
Harry is adamant that they will avenge Adam’s death through Arkaday Kachimov, the FSB (formerly known as KGB) bureau chief in London, who was responsible for Adam’s death.
The main plot line involves a Russian submarine that is in British waters. It transpires the sub is on a mission to launch a ‘cyber attack’ by intercepting the cable linking Europe with North America and launching a denial of service attack which would bring down every computer in the United Kingdom.
JIC (the Joint Intelligence Council) refuse to allow Harry to target Kachimov. They also refuse to ‘turn off the internet’ which Harry asks them to do, as a safety measure.
Lucas North (the Mi5 agent not long out of 8 years in a Russian jail) appears to be a double agent as he’s liaising with Kachimov. It also turns out that his ex-wife (who is Russian) is now his handler.
There is a Russian oil tycoon who Ros intercepts in the changing room of a City gym. Grabbing him by the *cough* testicles, she encourages him to spill the beans which is to confirm that there is a submarine in British waters.
A somewhat confusing episode. Lucas shows his true loyalty to Five having been tasered by Ros when she suspects him of actually working for the Russians. He’s interrogated by Harry and the rest of the team and says he’s playing Kachimov at his own game.
The Russian sub is now poised to launch its attack. Lucas intercepts Kachimov and tells him that they can set him up to look like a double-agent meaning his handlers in Russia would want him dead. The only way he can extricate himself from the situation is if he gives Mi5 the codes for the submarine. Kachimov takes him into the Russian embassy and they get the codes off the computers. Ben dials in a bomb alert and the embassy is evacuated. Lucas and Kachimov leave during the evacuation with the computer disk.
They get in a car driven by Ros and the team and the disk is handed over and put into a laptop. The data is sent directly to Malcolm back at Thames House who has just seconds left to prevent the cyber attack mounted by the submarine. He breaches all 3 firewalls of the sub’s defences and the sub loses all control.
The end result is that the attack is foiled. You then see a BBC report on the tv with a story about a Russian ‘oceanographic vessel’ that ran into difficulty, that was saved by the British Navy. This is the cover-up.
Kachimov is now effectively ‘turned’ to the British side. The final scene is him awaiting pick up to be taken to an Mi5 safe house. Ros and Harry are there. In a derelict part of London. Kachmimov shows no remorse for the death of Mi5’s star agent – Adam, calling him a disposable resource.
In the final scene, as he awaits his pick up, Harry calmly turns around and shoots Kachimov through the heart in cold blood.
The sub plot is Lucas and his Russian wife who is now FSB. At the end he has infiltrated her house and tells her that unless he joins him and works for Mi5 – she will lose everything she has.
A good episode, though not quite as dramatic as episode 1.
Re-run on BBC iPlayer.
Reviews of Spooks Series 7
