Did anyone watch this last night? I looked through the first three pages of TV Talk threads but didn't see anything about it, sooooo...

Here's my take on the show:



The plot: terrorists detonate a small nuclear bomb in London during the 2012 Olympics. The British government has since been moved from London to Manchester, and much of southeast England has been quarantined. MI-5 (the version you know for the original show) has been dismantled and broken up into small “field offices”. So instead of one giant spy agency, there are now 10 or 12 “mini-MI-5s” in the UK.

The main problem with the show is that the cast is made up of nothing but beautiful twentysomethings. If you will, imagine the overall look and feel of Spooks (albeit on a much tighter budget), but with British versions of the cast of The Hills or Gossip Girl playing spies (if you’re actually British, imagine Spooks recast with the kids from Skins).

While the acting is barely passable, the plots are inane, and the fact that every character has a “specialty” is hackneyed and contrived. The show lacks the cohones of Spooks. For example, we have no idea who set off the nuclear blast. While Spooks would have immediately blamed Al Qaeda, an IRA splinter group, or some other (mostly plausible) terrorist group, Spooks: Code 90210 apparently doesn’t want to offend anyone by assigning blame.

And it's not just me thinking the show sucks. The Telegraph wondered if the nuclear bomb had killed everyone over 40 in London. The Times said that the show is "to Spooks what Torchwood is to Doctor Who" (i.e., not as good). It further called the plots "daft and unconvincing" and "too ludicrous to work as well as similar spin-offs". I can't argue with any of this.

Don't get me wrong. I could look at Ruta Gedmintas (who plays former police officer Rachel Harris on the show) all day long. But not in this crap. This is awful!

Your thoughts?

I've fallen way behind on my Spooks episodes, so I need to do a major marathon to catch up, but I did hear about this new series, and I have to say, I am not really that enthused to see it. I'll wait to hear what the word of mouth is after a few episodes, but I think that I'll stick with the parent series.

I love MI-5/Spooks, just wish the DVDs didn't take so long to come out.

Disappointing to hear this isn't all that good.

Was this on BBC America or something?

Ehhhhhh.. no.

(wink-wink!)

interesting.. Might check it out..

I still need to watch the latest season of Spooks now that I think of it. I am very interested to check this show out, but I have my doubts going in.

So if I started with this show now, would I be spoiled on anything that happened in the other Spooks series?

I finally watched the 1st episode of this, and mostly agree with the OP.

I thought it was more like Grange Hill as Spooks.

Also Spooks the real version S7 is out now via the usual locales.