RIP Spooks. A real pity you screwed your audience.
As much as I moan about everything, it's rare I feel the need to write about my disappointment in a TV program, but I have to get this off my chest.
I used to LOVE spooks. They pitched the program at an audience of people who needed a lot more realism than you get from, say, Doctor Who, but at the same time didnt want to watch something stuffy that would only get onto BBC4. Things started going wrong in Season 7 when the writers expected us to believe that Harry might die. The long story arc during Season 7 saved it.In season 8, episode 2 the producers crossed the line.Doctor Who is a brilliant TV program, not really my bag to be honest, but I'm not the target audience. In Doctor Who they play around with country name, they use cheesy end-of-world dialogue, and they expect us to buy into relationships we've only been viewing for a matter of minutes. Spooks now do the same. Made up counties like "Tasbekstan", dialogue like "The British gas supply runs out in 2 days, and we have to do everything in our power to save the country", and then the utterly PATHETIC 'special relationship' between the US "model" and MI5 "hunk". Give me a break. All this is forgiveable. But here's what's not.Spooks, I guess, is aimed at the semi-educated 25+ viewers, hence the BBC1 9pm timeslot. I think its fairly likely that those same people will know that the outcome of a major national energy crisis would NOT come down to whether one rogue MI5 agent could save the life of someone from TASBEKSTAN. The producers have screwed over their loyal core audience by utterly patronising us. I feel genuinely sorry for the wonderfully talented cast and crew. The producers have let you down very badly. No wonder Spooks now gets less than half the viewers it did for the first 3 years. Rant over.
