Obituary: RIP Spooks

Last Sunday saw the finale of one of the most ground-breaking British television programmes of the twenty-first century. Spooks (BBC1), the popular espionage drama, followed the lives of a group of MI5 agents, and managed to shock and captivate audiences for nearly ten years. In short, for many, it was must-watch television.

One of the main reasons why Spooks was so innovative was due to the way it dealt with the departure of a main character in such a cold and violent manner.

Throughout the years, the producers have managed to ruthlessly kill off approximately three quarters of ‘the grid,’ a statistic which will surely be less than appealing for budding graduates wishing to pursue a career with the Intelligence Services.

High-profile deaths included that of Adam Carter (played by the poster-boy and mum-pleaser, Rupert Penry-Jones) who heroically died attempting to flee from a car bomb, and the geeky IT technician, Colin Wells (Rory MacGregor), who was pulled from his MI5 van and hanged in a deserted wooded area. And what about Ros Myers (Hermione Norris), who was killed in an explosion after attempting to save the life of the home secretary.

Though perhaps the most shocking and gruesome of deaths came in just the second- ever episode. Viewers witnessed Helen Flynn (Lisa Faulkner), an attractive young blonde with great potential, being flung head-first into a deep-fat fryer full of extremely hot oil and then being shot mercilessly on the spot. Even though it turned out that she had been dipped in nothing more than a mixture of cold tea and food colouring, 154 disgruntled viewers picked up their telephones to voice their complaints.

Yet that was 2002 and nine years later, if this were to happen to a member of the cast, viewers wouldn’t even bat an eyelid. To a large extent, the audience of Spooks eventually became desensitised and would expect a main character to be brutally killed off during each series. This was undoubtedly the case when it came to the death of Tariq Masood in the most recent of series, whose murder went largely unnoticed in comparison to previous fatalities of Section D.

And it was not just the axing of main characters that had become unsurprising. The plots had become tired and just plain predictable. After eighty-six episodes, it would seem that there are only a few countries that are not willing to wage some form of warfare on Britain. The storylines often just repeated themselves.

But in amongst these, there have been some genuine corkers. Fans couldn’t possibly forget episode five of series two when the team were led to believe that a dirty bomb had gone off in central London. MI5 was quarantined and sealed off in an apocalyptic scenario, but it later turned out to be merely a training exercise.

Or what about episode eight of series six, when Ros Myers was given a lethal injection, only then to find out that the solution had been replaced with a paralysing agent and thus faking her death. These examples are the type of episodes which will hopefully come to define the drama.

With such a tired format, though, Spooks’ demise was always somewhat inevitable. Even the BBC, it would seem, had taken the same viewpoint, as the last series was foolishly put up against ratings juggernaut Downton Abbey. Yet, in choosing to conclude the series, producers have ensured that Spooks will often be considered as one of the greatest British television dramas of all time.