MI-5 (aka Spooks) - Discussion Tread
 

I have no idea if/how much/how well A&E is promoting this series, but it's really a good show, and it'd be too bad if people missed it. Plus, good TV over the summer can be hard to find.

MI-5 is actually the BBC series Spooks, renamed (and most likely edited down, as the original episodes run 58 minutes each and has no end credits) for US consumption. I've seen the first season/series on DVD, and I've become quite a fan.

The show centers around MI-5, the British domestic counter-terrorism facility. The concept is similar to 24, and MI-5's style certainly owes a lot to it. IMO, based on the first season, this is a better written and less gimmicky show (And, as an added bonus, no Kim!) It's more of a character-oriented show, focusing both on the spying and how spies deal with secret identities in daily life. The self-contained episode plots are well-done, with various different types and levels of threat, and usually with enough twists to keep things from becoming utterly predictable. The characters are built gradually as the show progresses, and manage to all be somewhat interesting.

A&E will be airing all sixteen existing episodes (six from the first season, ten from the second), which is a good thing because

"MI-5" debuts this Tuesday at 9 PM, in a special 'sneak peek', and will air regularly Tuesdays at 10 PM. There is a Tuesday 10 PM airing on the 22nd, but it looks like that's going to be the 9 PM episode repeated. It could be that they're airing the full 58 minute episode uncut, but it'd have to be insanely padded out with commercials. The second episode (which has a particularly shocking and memorable scene) isn't scheduled to run until the next week.

Because, hey, at least it's not more reality dating/hook-up TV.

this is an excellent show,Jlbkwrm.I don't know if your from the U.K. but the second episode did get alot of complaints but I thought it was well handled.The boxset has come out for season 1 and its pretty sweet, It has 3 discs,DD 5.1,16x9,cast & crew commentaries on 6 uncut episodes,deleted scenes,documentries and you can get all the shows scripts in dvd-rom form.Its a great show that did use a few tricks from 24 but I do hope you all enjoy it.

Any chance of this coming to dvd soon (uncut as well)

At first I thought this was a reality show, but I guess not.

I'm in the US, but I'd heard about the second episode on a message board, got intrigued, did research, and wound up preordering the DVDs. I was pretty surprised by how nice the set is--probably the most extras per episode of any TV set I've seen.

I think we'll see DVDs eventually (Hopefully just NTSCd versions of the R2s), but I've got no idea how soon. It looks like the second series hasn't even finished airing in the UK yet, and we probably won't get the second series DVDs before they get theirs (Which, if they go for a yearly release, won't be until June of '04.)

I jsut saw this advertised, and it sure had that bbc look about it, so I had added it to the Tivo Season Pass to check it out.

Thanks for the heads up though..

I've seen the previews for M!-5 and I'm interested. Can't wait!

I wish A&E would get another series called Ultimate Force about a SAS team. has anyone seen this? Is it any good?

I never watch A&E, but i was watching a documentary, and saw the preview for this. It gives me kind of a Bourne Identity vibe... VCR is set. I'm in.

quote:
Manco
I wish A&E would get another series called Ultimate Force about a SAS team. has anyone seen this? Is it any good?

NO! you see we have 2 main channels over here, BBC and ITV, BBC is paid for by public money and has no adverts were ITV is paid for by adverts, and they have only just got around to show sponsership ala alias & 24.The problem with ultimate force is that the missions they go on are either too small (arms warehouse in the countryside) or missions that the SAS would never do (to stop a bank robbery).
Next to MI-5 it looks cheap and doesn't get close to the same amount of viewers.But as it's on TV it doesn't cost anything to check it out!

Looking forward to this tomorrow! :up:

I've set up to tape this. It looks pretty interesting. I've enjoyed some of the BBC America stuff. And I'm stoked that they're releasing a boxed set of the Vicar of Dibley!

I've set my ReplayTV to record this show as well. This should be fun to watch. It reminds me a little of the comic called "Queen and Country".

Exactly Patman! Greg Rucka's Queen and Country is an amazing comic series. When I first read about MI5, for a split second, I was hoping that it would be a tv version of Q&C. Oh well. It still looks good and I'm going to tape it. With that and Nip and Tuck an hour later, it make for some interesting tv tuesday night.

Completely OT, but does anyone know if the BBC has any plans to make more episodes of their great vampire/x-files show Ultraviolet? I really liked that show and they left the ending open for some new episodes.

Ultraviolet? Looks like I missed that one. Is it on BBC America at all?

They should've kept the original title just to piss off Spike Lee.

Thanks for the heads-up - I plan on watching this show!

http://www.aetv.com/tv/shows/mi5/mi5_homepage.html

and a zap2it review, which addresses the 44 minute versus 58 minute running time. This show sounds pretty cool.

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve...7C1%7C,00.html

It's available on DVD .

Chew - Thanks!

I hope if they release it here in the states on dvd, they include both versions

^^bump

This is on tonight!

tivo is programmed. :D

Wait a minute... a British show, airing on US TV, and it's not a remake with American actors? How can this be? ;)
I had completely forgotten about this show airing here, so thanks for the reminder.

I believe the original air dates were 1998, so not likely.

My timer on my PVR is all set.

As Pac-Rat said, it ran in 1998 and only lasted one season. Didn't go over well though it was brilliantly handled. The 6 exisiting episodes do a decent job of wrapping up most loose ends. Since Jack Davenport is now on the successful BBC comedy Coupling, I would say it would be unlikely they're going to have any more Ultraviolet episodes.

Can't wait for MI-5 tonight! :D:thumbsup:

in regards to ultraviolet it was not made by the BBC, but by our forth TV channel,called channel 4 (surprise!) but I'm not quite sure if BBC america show stuff from other channels.

well according to the BBC's website Channel 4 and BBC 4 are the same. The end credits of the show also denote BBC. As for the show, the pacing was a tad fast - got used to it as the show progressed. Great acting, great script (with the inclusion of 'blue' language a couple of times -I'm hooked.

I enjoyed the show as well.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact all of the Americans in the show were either villains or *itches (CIA) though. :lol:

Yeah, definitely seemed stereotypical(?) from a certain perspective, but then, how do we normally portray Brits on American shows?

good show though, and I'll try to catch it in the future, although for some odd reason it's scheduled at the exact same time as nip/tuck. -- bastards.

Thought it was pretty good. Definitely improved on second viewing, as some of the initial 'confusion' regarding the characters and their initial roles was resolved.

Very, very good show. I'm looking forward to the next episode.

<small></small>Channel 4 and BBC are entirely separate entities. As suggested, it may well be the case that BBC America shows some UK-originated output from its local "rivals".

Following on the link posted above, I see that the 58 minutes show was edited down to about 44 minutes for the US market. Methinks that <i>would</i> affect the pacing somewhat! Apparently the creator is happy with it, though, and thinks the editing makes it<i> better</i>!

OMG! Sienna Miller in 2 shows in one week! She plays the blonde secretary-ish role in MI-5, and she plays Fiona on Keen Eddie.

Enjoyed the first episode, but it did feel like there was major snippage of the episode (over 12 minutes from the original episode).

Okay, went back and took a closer look at the blonde secretary in the preview, and it's not Sienna Miller, but someone who looks very very very similar. I chalk it up to my not-so-great cable TV feed and my ReplayTV in Extended recording mode. :)

I turned this off after 30 minutes. I just couldn't get into it at all.

thoughts on episode #2? Thought it was another solid effort, including the scene where

No kidding.

Interesting how that scene was edited too. I think more would have been shown if it had been an American show, but I actually preferred this way since it left a lot to your imagination.

I missed the first episode, but my Season Pass has been added.

Did not expect that at all.

One thing that drove me nuts was... it took forever to get back to that piece of the story. It stayed in the back of my mind, and I kept wondering how that would play out.

I think the even-numbered episodes are my favorite. Episode two has the now-infamous scene (which is actually what prompted me to look into the show in the first place), as well as the whole bit with the Episode four guest stars , who I like a lot, and has a solid story. Episode six is just... neat.

One question, did the A&E preview for episode 2 really show I'd heard that was there, but I know it wasn't in the BBC 'next week' promo. If A&E really did show that, I'd probably make a point of skipping the episode six A&E 'Next week on...' thing. There's something in there that really shouldn't be spoiled, but I can totally see A&E including in their promo.

Just added this to my Tivo, the next episode is called
"Looking After Our Own"

How many epsiodes in the series have I missed?