Spooks - NEW SERIES

Autumn has come and it looks like what little social life I had before is about to be lost to a new, busy and highly exciting TV schedule. Making a very welcome return to our BBC screens tonight was “Spooks”, the highly acclaimed British MI5 drama. I have to admit after watching the first couple of series and that notable chip fat fryer horror scene I lost interest. The original cast featuring both Keeley Hawes and Matthew Macfayden were for the most part dead, extradited or in hiding and newer spooks didn’t give me the interest that I needed. I was brought back to the phenomenon with the last series where I was happily surprised to note that it had moved on, rather than individual episodes with little or no continuing themes, Spooks had entered the area of continuing dramatic storylines that built gradually through the episodes showing just that little more each time to consistently build the intrigue and complex plot, which, had it been revealed at the beginning, would have put even the most intelligent minds into a downward spiral.

Last time a complex web of lies and deceit were built around the Iranian ambassador and terrorist forces and tonight’s episode opened with a new terrorist plot, this time Al Qaeda, a sprinkling of Russian and a dash of Chechnya. After the cliff hanger of last season’s finale we soon discovered that Jo was thankfully alive and making a surprise return was Ros (Hermione Norris). Normally once a spook is gone, they’re gone, but Ros seen to survive the editorial guillotine and was back with vengeance tonight landing back in Britain from Russia and uttering “I’m getting extremely bored. I’m tempted to get out and kill them just to get it over with” upon realising that she’d been followed.

Of course Adam (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Harry were once again at the helm and with the trade of a Russian spy for a British one Lucas (Richard Armitage) makes a welcome addition to the cast. Fighting to rescue a British soldier taken hostage and being threatened with execution it was soon revealed that this was just a side line to a far more ominous plot to blow up innocent spouses and children of dead British soldiers at a Remembrance Day service. Quickly on the scene Lucas managed to take down the assassin while Adam, after a brief poignant moment with returned Ros, high jacked a parked car bomb and jettisoned it as far away from innocent citizens as he could. Unfortunately, not making a deserted square quite in time, Adam was caught in the blast and that was the end of Rupert Penry-Jones. With the addition of Armitage to the cast it should have been obvious that one member of the team was on the way out – though often the unexpected twists make the viewers guessing a hard task. How Harry & Connie managed to live above 40 I don’t know, you sure don’t last very long being a Spook, well, not when your bosses are BBC writers.

With Adam dead Lucas North makes up the numbers

BBC - Mondays at 21.00