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Right, I've had a monster of a day so today's series blog is going to be, what I believe is known in the trade as, 'concise' (i.e. shorter than it should be).
Harry and the Home Sec were given a quick blast of a dangerous computer hijacking program (a bit like a Firefox add-on, right kids? Hey? Eh? Ah, my satire is wasted on you...). Tariq finally snapped, clearly furious at having no lines that weren't clunky technological exposition... except that, it was a cunning ruse to secretly tell Ruth that the grid had been compromised, which she then conveyed to Harry through a glass of water and a note. Magic. This is why I love Spooks. Reading a note by pretending to drink water. The very best Her Majesty's Military Intelligence has by way of covert note passing.
Lucas had agreed to meet Vaughn in Battersea Park, taking with him reliable Mr. Gunny. Vaughn demanded the Albany file in a sneery, evil way... oh Boo! Boo! Hiss! Fantastically Dimitri was showing off a disarmed bomb he just had lying around. Dimitri is fast becoming a cult hero, bombs lying around, working out people weren't using chemical explosives to treat Diabetes... an all-round genius. There was a quick 2 minute* window in which for Harry to give the team the low-down on the surveillance. Lucas picked up a sassy American cryptographer Danielle Ortiz (and by 'picked up' I don't mean that. For god's sake, grow up! I mean he was handling... hold on... why are there no spy terms that aren't synonymous with sex?) and began ferrying her around the capital. She seemed familiar. Perhaps because she's been in something else or perhaps because she was basically the Spooks' version of Lisbeth Salander.
Dimitri cracked out the Nikon and started snapping the cyberterrorists ("oh yeah, grr, you're a tiger, pout more" etc.) before returning to the grid and slipping the memory card to Beth to take into the ladies toilets (because these are cyberterrorists, not your average perverts) and run face recog on. In truth, the device of confinement and the rising tension in the office as everyone had to 'keep calm and carry on' made for a terrific episode. Tariq gave the game away by a split second glance at the camera after the classic 'pretend to drop your important documents so that Beth can help you pick them up and slip you some classified intel' trick.
Lucas fobbed Ortiz/Salander off with some lies and went to the location Vaughn had tasked him with investigating. And who should open the door but MALCOLM!! (Fanboy yay!). Meanwhile, ex-SBS man Dimitri attempted to shoot his way out of the now locked down building before declaring it 'useless'. No? Because MI5 wouldn't bother bulletproofing their perspex doors and walls, would they? After retrieving a parcel from Malcolm, Lucas returned to the car to find that Ortiz had given him the slip. After some brooding and manhandling he forced her back into the car.
Using crazy voice synthesomething technology, the hackers were able to use a robotic Harry to order Lucas to 'neutralise' Ortiz. Dimitri formulated some terrible plan involving - yes, you guessed it - bombs... Lucas' moral code might be a little off-kilter these days, but he knows when he's being played and phoned up the faux-Harry to ask him his favourite opera. He quickly sped away in the car, having a tire blown out in the process and Ortiz taking a bullet graze to the neck. Lucas then beat an armed man to a bloody pulp. Ortiz was in bad shape but promised that she wouldnt' tell anyone about Lucas' trip to Malcolm's house or Albany, at which point we were reminded just how off-kilter his moral code was when he pretended to phone and ambulance and let her die.
Harry made a bold phone call to the terrorists (because we do negotiate with terrorists) except that was all a cunning ruse too and Dimitri had in fact blown the communications to hell, allowing a loop of faces and Harry on the phone to be played (somehow). Armed Met burst into the building and apprehended the cyber terrorists. Hooray!
It would seem however that Malcolm handed Lucas a fake Albany file, prompting him to break into Malcolm's house (Lucas has done a mighty heel turn in these last few episodes...) only to find it stripped out. Spooky.
Welcome Returns
Colin Salmon's comedy American accent.
Malcolm.
Tariq's Tank Tops
Green.
Quote of the Week
'I've got a terrible crick in my neck, you see' Harry (you probably had to be there)
Oh, and
'Oi, Evershed, stop being nosy' Dimitri
NEXT WEEK
Lucas! Ruth and Harry! Ruth and Lucas! Lucas with a gun! Schoolchildren!
Showing posts with label Spooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spooks. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Kooks...
We might as well kick off with This Week's Topical Touchstone which one could hardly ignore as it was treated with the customary, classic Spooks heavy-handedness. Yes, it was the Israeli/Palestine situation and the eagerness of Lighthouse (or 'Obama' as we know him) to engineer peace talks. But we all know better than to think that political forward thinking can ever actually take place in the world of Spooks (or even the real world for that matter)...
This weeks' plot was decidedly convoluted (as usual) and revolved largely around a double Lebanese agent switcheroo. We quickly (I say quickly, it took the actual plot about 20 minutes to get there) worked out that an attempt was being planned on the president's life. Of Beth and Dimitri, who had been tasked with babysitting the delegations one went about their job in an ordinary way and the other got beaten up... again. Guess which? Yes, Beth got tied up and nearly died for the... I've lost count of the number of times. She wasn't alone however. Lucas nearly died too, his assailant resolving to leave him tied to a drain by his belt however. (It was at no point explained how Lucas got free from the drain. Presumably there's a whole episode here where some yoofs nick his trousers and he has to bite through the leather belt and then chase them). Lucas' attacker later gave himself up and explained that he wasn't the one who planned to kill Lighthouse and he had instead been trying to kill the one who planned to kill Lighthouse. Got that? Good.
There was some sort of minor argy bargy between the delegations involving lunch (I didn't particularly understand this bit, but then I was trying to read an article about Wayne Rooney on the Guardian website at the time, so cut me some slack, will ya...). The Palestinian head made a joke about dates, I forgot to mention that earlier... oh and the Israeli ambassador was called Levi Cohen, which I believe is the first name listed under Jewish Characters in the Hamfist Guide to TV Stereotypes. Cohen doesn't get on with his daughter, also a politician, mainly because he allowed her to be kindapped in 2001... you think she'd be over that now but apparently not (whatevs... etc.).
The main point was that Beth's captor cut himself in the right thigh with a sterilised knife (one hopes that he dresses to the left) and limped away, leaving her to engineer an escape by using a jack to break the radiator pipe she was tied to and tip off Lucas about the limpy assassin (big on the old limps this series). Ruth and Tariq quickly tried to work out if a shot was possible from the roof of the hospital. Tariq noting that it would indeed be 'a record' 1.67 miles and (repeatedly) that there was another building in the way. They quickly called Dimitri who reeled off an array of astonishing ballistics based facts and informed them that it was basically impossible. Ruth pointed out that the sniper might have prepped the building beforehand and sure enough the sniper fired off a quick salvo, taking down the Palestinian rep. Lucas loomed behind him however and when the perp went for his handgun, shot him down.
The sniper died with an unsettling grin, so unsettling in fact that even stony Lucas was unsettled by it and phone Ruth to explain just how unsettling it all was. He'd achieved his goal of creating chaos at the front of the hotel and forced the president to take the back door where someone else would be waiting. Dimitri ran off to find Anna Cohen, who had conveniently disappeared.
We built to a stunning denouement where Anna Cohen turned herself into a walking diabetic bomb by injecting chemical explosives with her Insulin syringes. A masterful play, even by Spooks standards of implausible heel turns and improvised weaponry. Fortunately Dimitri whose growing on me each week was able to talk her down and disarm his second bomb in 2 weeks, all the more impressive when you consider that one of them was a human.
Back at HQ we were treated to the usual 2 or so minutes bolted on the end that we don't really need. Lucas was told that the sniper had been fed false intel the whole time and that Anna was completely responsible. Another hard day over, Lucas/John went to Maya only to find that her partner Michael was home and that Michael was Vaughn! Yes Vaughn faked a Stroke (somehow) and was in fact cleverly pulling all the strings somehow. There was not even one mention of Albany this week. So much for finding out why the file was just a Turner. We may never know...
Character of the Week
Dimitri was this week's go to guy with all manner of ballistics and explosives expertise. He identified chemical explosives instead of insulin from one sniff (mad skills) and persuaded Anna not to spray her innards around the office suite. Top work from the new boy.
Clamour of the Week
Over on the Guardian blog there are calls for Tariq to be given something more than clunky exposition by way of lines. I, however, suspect that Tariq is the sort of character that would remain largely silent, were he not tasked with explaining most of the plot and implausible technological leaps (unless he was playing Call of Duty with a headset).
Next Week
Lucas! John! Lucas/John! Harry & Ruth! Compromised Grid! Shouting!
This weeks' plot was decidedly convoluted (as usual) and revolved largely around a double Lebanese agent switcheroo. We quickly (I say quickly, it took the actual plot about 20 minutes to get there) worked out that an attempt was being planned on the president's life. Of Beth and Dimitri, who had been tasked with babysitting the delegations one went about their job in an ordinary way and the other got beaten up... again. Guess which? Yes, Beth got tied up and nearly died for the... I've lost count of the number of times. She wasn't alone however. Lucas nearly died too, his assailant resolving to leave him tied to a drain by his belt however. (It was at no point explained how Lucas got free from the drain. Presumably there's a whole episode here where some yoofs nick his trousers and he has to bite through the leather belt and then chase them). Lucas' attacker later gave himself up and explained that he wasn't the one who planned to kill Lighthouse and he had instead been trying to kill the one who planned to kill Lighthouse. Got that? Good.
There was some sort of minor argy bargy between the delegations involving lunch (I didn't particularly understand this bit, but then I was trying to read an article about Wayne Rooney on the Guardian website at the time, so cut me some slack, will ya...). The Palestinian head made a joke about dates, I forgot to mention that earlier... oh and the Israeli ambassador was called Levi Cohen, which I believe is the first name listed under Jewish Characters in the Hamfist Guide to TV Stereotypes. Cohen doesn't get on with his daughter, also a politician, mainly because he allowed her to be kindapped in 2001... you think she'd be over that now but apparently not (whatevs... etc.).
The main point was that Beth's captor cut himself in the right thigh with a sterilised knife (one hopes that he dresses to the left) and limped away, leaving her to engineer an escape by using a jack to break the radiator pipe she was tied to and tip off Lucas about the limpy assassin (big on the old limps this series). Ruth and Tariq quickly tried to work out if a shot was possible from the roof of the hospital. Tariq noting that it would indeed be 'a record' 1.67 miles and (repeatedly) that there was another building in the way. They quickly called Dimitri who reeled off an array of astonishing ballistics based facts and informed them that it was basically impossible. Ruth pointed out that the sniper might have prepped the building beforehand and sure enough the sniper fired off a quick salvo, taking down the Palestinian rep. Lucas loomed behind him however and when the perp went for his handgun, shot him down.
The sniper died with an unsettling grin, so unsettling in fact that even stony Lucas was unsettled by it and phone Ruth to explain just how unsettling it all was. He'd achieved his goal of creating chaos at the front of the hotel and forced the president to take the back door where someone else would be waiting. Dimitri ran off to find Anna Cohen, who had conveniently disappeared.
We built to a stunning denouement where Anna Cohen turned herself into a walking diabetic bomb by injecting chemical explosives with her Insulin syringes. A masterful play, even by Spooks standards of implausible heel turns and improvised weaponry. Fortunately Dimitri whose growing on me each week was able to talk her down and disarm his second bomb in 2 weeks, all the more impressive when you consider that one of them was a human.
Back at HQ we were treated to the usual 2 or so minutes bolted on the end that we don't really need. Lucas was told that the sniper had been fed false intel the whole time and that Anna was completely responsible. Another hard day over, Lucas/John went to Maya only to find that her partner Michael was home and that Michael was Vaughn! Yes Vaughn faked a Stroke (somehow) and was in fact cleverly pulling all the strings somehow. There was not even one mention of Albany this week. So much for finding out why the file was just a Turner. We may never know...
Character of the Week
Dimitri was this week's go to guy with all manner of ballistics and explosives expertise. He identified chemical explosives instead of insulin from one sniff (mad skills) and persuaded Anna not to spray her innards around the office suite. Top work from the new boy.
Clamour of the Week
Over on the Guardian blog there are calls for Tariq to be given something more than clunky exposition by way of lines. I, however, suspect that Tariq is the sort of character that would remain largely silent, were he not tasked with explaining most of the plot and implausible technological leaps (unless he was playing Call of Duty with a headset).
Next Week
Lucas! John! Lucas/John! Harry & Ruth! Compromised Grid! Shouting!
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Dukes...
Break out the implausibly named chemicals, it's time for this week's Spooks series blog! (As always, here's the link to last week's to keep you in the loop). Weirdly, last night I had a dream that I was in Spooks. It was all very exciting and not quite everything actually made sense. So it was pretty true to form, really. I was Armitage. I even did the Armitage voice and everything.
I must confess that I missed the pre-credits stuff this week and had to go back to iPlayer it, seeing as most weeks half of the entire plot unfolds before the title sequence. This was not one of those occasions however as we were given only a minute or so of fairly banal action with a 'holyshitwhyhavetheygotallthoseguns?!??!' moment at the end. As you'll remember, we've covered Al Qaeda, Somali pirates, Nigerian oil tycoons and last week the Russians, so where to go from there? The Chinese, of course. It was three Chinese agents responsible for the 'holyshitwhyhavetheygotallthoseguns?!!?!?!?' just before the credits, but forget that because Armitage/Lucas North/John (and his torso of many tattoos) is in bed with Laila Rouass/Maya (it is Maya, I checked). There would seem to be trouble in paradise however as a labelled photo on the table in Lucas' lovely open plan kitchen (civil service cuts not quite reaching MI5 yet) would seem to indicate that someone, possibly Vaughn (he of the lopsided face), was onto them.
Meanwhile Beth was using all of her charm attempting to turn a CSS agent Kai (a brilliant turn by Benedict Wong, who was equally fantastic in the Countdown episode of The IT Crowd... the range, dear readers, the range!) to get some valuable intel on their business in England and Harry had heart-to-hearts with both the home secretary and Colin Salmon (who was playing a slightly ropey-accented CIA agent), both of whom warned him not to tread on Chinese toes in the present climate. So naturally, Lucas and Dimitri (yes, Dimitri was let out of the office again this week) were tasked with breaking into the Chinese Embassy. Tariq, who gets lumbered with some awful technobabble-infused exposition (I do miss Malcolm, by the way), poor bloke, lets them in via the window where they roam the building with torches (not exactly Splinter Cell, is it?).
As it happens, someone's dropped a bollock and tripped the alarms. We know this because Kai politely phones Beth to warn them, even though she scared him away earlier that day (again... charm). The CSS man guides Dimitri and Lucas to the roof before Lucas undoes all the hard work by finding another way out 'because they'll know we had inside help if we both go out this way'. Lucas decides his way out is smashing a window and nicking some laptops, then feigning innocence when angry-looking, gun-toting Chinese officials catch him. He puts on a London-ish accent (the perfect disguise) and claims to be a petty-ish criminal, leaving the Chinese to hand him over to the Met, the fools.
Beth met Kai again, with both Lucas and Dimitri watching from afar (Dimitri was really earning his paypacket this week). Lucas' watching was interrupted by a phonecall from Vaughn, who was in a pub for reasons which I don't fully understand, who told him to get the 'Albany' files. Cut To: the MI5 'Interrogation Suite' (yes, this is what flashed up on the screen, so it must be true) where Tariq was conducting a polygraph (or presumably something less technically dubious) on Kai. Lucas headed for the mainframe to look up Albany, but bottled it, realising the implications. I was disappointed to learn that his username was simply 'Lucas North', I was hoping for something along the lines of 'FSBsux' or 'NorthbyNorthwest' or at least 'LNorth36' or something.
The mysterious clueword of the episode was 'Amphitrite' and it was Ruth (yes, even Ruth was allowed onto the grid this week, mostly for her remarkable translating abilities) who was tasked with finding out. Displaying some impressive spy skills including pretending to have Diabetes and ignoring fire alarms, she eventually discovered Amphitrite to be not a dangerous chemical (we had enough of that last week) or even the desalination tech that they originally thought, but rather a woman: a certain Dr. Jiang. Who was being held in a room by the CIA, who had been tasked with protecting her from the Chinese (so even Colin Salmon was talking smack).
Lucas, still needing someone with Level 7 clearance to be his fall guy, picked poor old Stephen Owen, a 22 year old data analyst - easily the least cool job in MI5... like being a dinnerlady at Apple or Andrew Ridgeley- and stole his details with which to nab the Albany file. Which turned out simply to be Turner's The Battle of Trafalgar (depicting the famous pre-battle message flags). All that trouble for a jpg of (an admittedly brilliant) painting, duly delivered to Vaughn on a USB stick with ample time for a quick voddy and to rush to the hospital to embrace Maya.
Meanwhile, Kai was being played by the Chinese all along and turned out to be an unwitting triple agent and was promptly thrown into the back of a transit with Dr. Jiang. The secret services were warned that any intereference would result in a bomb being set off in London. Cue Dimitri's time to shine. Not content with being outside the office on at least 3 separate occasions, he had to diffuse a bomb while Beth, Lucas and what appeared to be a Met task force intercepted the van. Kai went crazy and got embroiled in a standoff, as it all went a bit John Woo. Dimitri melted the bomb with a Zippo lighter (who knew?) while Beth took a leaf out of Lucas' book and yelled Kai into submission.
And they all lived happily ever after... nope... this is Spooks. We finished with more tension between Harry and Ruth, young Stephen being arrested for compromising the mainframe and it transpired that the CSS agents had another agenda as well as Amphitrite... none other than a black and white photo of our own Lucas! Which meant that the negative shot at the end of the show was of a black and white photo. A negative of a black and white photo. Confusion at its best.
Exchange of the Week
More than just a quote this time. It just had to be the conversation between Harry and the home secretary.
Israeli paramilitaries! Beth tied up! Harry and the home secretary argue! Business as usual!
I must confess that I missed the pre-credits stuff this week and had to go back to iPlayer it, seeing as most weeks half of the entire plot unfolds before the title sequence. This was not one of those occasions however as we were given only a minute or so of fairly banal action with a 'holyshitwhyhavetheygotallthoseguns?!??!' moment at the end. As you'll remember, we've covered Al Qaeda, Somali pirates, Nigerian oil tycoons and last week the Russians, so where to go from there? The Chinese, of course. It was three Chinese agents responsible for the 'holyshitwhyhavetheygotallthoseguns?!!?!?!?' just before the credits, but forget that because Armitage/Lucas North/John (and his torso of many tattoos) is in bed with Laila Rouass/Maya (it is Maya, I checked). There would seem to be trouble in paradise however as a labelled photo on the table in Lucas' lovely open plan kitchen (civil service cuts not quite reaching MI5 yet) would seem to indicate that someone, possibly Vaughn (he of the lopsided face), was onto them.
Meanwhile Beth was using all of her charm attempting to turn a CSS agent Kai (a brilliant turn by Benedict Wong, who was equally fantastic in the Countdown episode of The IT Crowd... the range, dear readers, the range!) to get some valuable intel on their business in England and Harry had heart-to-hearts with both the home secretary and Colin Salmon (who was playing a slightly ropey-accented CIA agent), both of whom warned him not to tread on Chinese toes in the present climate. So naturally, Lucas and Dimitri (yes, Dimitri was let out of the office again this week) were tasked with breaking into the Chinese Embassy. Tariq, who gets lumbered with some awful technobabble-infused exposition (I do miss Malcolm, by the way), poor bloke, lets them in via the window where they roam the building with torches (not exactly Splinter Cell, is it?).
As it happens, someone's dropped a bollock and tripped the alarms. We know this because Kai politely phones Beth to warn them, even though she scared him away earlier that day (again... charm). The CSS man guides Dimitri and Lucas to the roof before Lucas undoes all the hard work by finding another way out 'because they'll know we had inside help if we both go out this way'. Lucas decides his way out is smashing a window and nicking some laptops, then feigning innocence when angry-looking, gun-toting Chinese officials catch him. He puts on a London-ish accent (the perfect disguise) and claims to be a petty-ish criminal, leaving the Chinese to hand him over to the Met, the fools.
Beth met Kai again, with both Lucas and Dimitri watching from afar (Dimitri was really earning his paypacket this week). Lucas' watching was interrupted by a phonecall from Vaughn, who was in a pub for reasons which I don't fully understand, who told him to get the 'Albany' files. Cut To: the MI5 'Interrogation Suite' (yes, this is what flashed up on the screen, so it must be true) where Tariq was conducting a polygraph (or presumably something less technically dubious) on Kai. Lucas headed for the mainframe to look up Albany, but bottled it, realising the implications. I was disappointed to learn that his username was simply 'Lucas North', I was hoping for something along the lines of 'FSBsux' or 'NorthbyNorthwest' or at least 'LNorth36' or something.
The mysterious clueword of the episode was 'Amphitrite' and it was Ruth (yes, even Ruth was allowed onto the grid this week, mostly for her remarkable translating abilities) who was tasked with finding out. Displaying some impressive spy skills including pretending to have Diabetes and ignoring fire alarms, she eventually discovered Amphitrite to be not a dangerous chemical (we had enough of that last week) or even the desalination tech that they originally thought, but rather a woman: a certain Dr. Jiang. Who was being held in a room by the CIA, who had been tasked with protecting her from the Chinese (so even Colin Salmon was talking smack).
Lucas, still needing someone with Level 7 clearance to be his fall guy, picked poor old Stephen Owen, a 22 year old data analyst - easily the least cool job in MI5... like being a dinnerlady at Apple or Andrew Ridgeley- and stole his details with which to nab the Albany file. Which turned out simply to be Turner's The Battle of Trafalgar (depicting the famous pre-battle message flags). All that trouble for a jpg of (an admittedly brilliant) painting, duly delivered to Vaughn on a USB stick with ample time for a quick voddy and to rush to the hospital to embrace Maya.
Meanwhile, Kai was being played by the Chinese all along and turned out to be an unwitting triple agent and was promptly thrown into the back of a transit with Dr. Jiang. The secret services were warned that any intereference would result in a bomb being set off in London. Cue Dimitri's time to shine. Not content with being outside the office on at least 3 separate occasions, he had to diffuse a bomb while Beth, Lucas and what appeared to be a Met task force intercepted the van. Kai went crazy and got embroiled in a standoff, as it all went a bit John Woo. Dimitri melted the bomb with a Zippo lighter (who knew?) while Beth took a leaf out of Lucas' book and yelled Kai into submission.
And they all lived happily ever after... nope... this is Spooks. We finished with more tension between Harry and Ruth, young Stephen being arrested for compromising the mainframe and it transpired that the CSS agents had another agenda as well as Amphitrite... none other than a black and white photo of our own Lucas! Which meant that the negative shot at the end of the show was of a black and white photo. A negative of a black and white photo. Confusion at its best.
Exchange of the Week
More than just a quote this time. It just had to be the conversation between Harry and the home secretary.
HARRY (regarding the Chinese): So we should simply roll over for the bigger dog?Next Week
TOWERS: If you roll over you sometimes get your tummy tickled... [stares lugubriously at takeaway coffee] I don't think they put the hazelnut syrup in.
HARRY (does uimpressed face (you know the one... the Harry unimpressed face) gets up to leave, nods): Home secretary... [leaves]
Israeli paramilitaries! Beth tied up! Harry and the home secretary argue! Business as usual!
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Flukes...
It's time for the Spooks Series Blog the third and yesterday's was a classic example of Spooks formula. Pre-credits bloodbath, running, techy talk, exposition, pouting, world-ending chemicals inexplicably being stored in Central London - the LOT.
At the opening, all eyes were on the Azakstan Freedom Front (Azakstan is a bit like Kazakhstan only slightly more fictitious, one assumes) as they attempted ot break into a research facility before being promptly shot dead by balaclav-clad men including our very own Lucas.
Yup, it was a Russian-themed episode which can only mean comedy Russkie accents ahoy (one of Spooks' real vices) and plenty of terrifying bioweaponary. Harry (Peter Firth is literally the best actor in the world when it comes to being singularly uimpressed by everything) is eventually persuaded to allowed well-dressed FSB agent Viktor onto the grid to track Azis Aibek (who you will also remember as definitely non-Russian, non-handicapped Anderson in Sherlock, one of several facts to the detriment of his credibility as a terrorist from the ex-Soviet Union) an escaped AFF member with a gammy leg who was attempting to unleash an implausibly name but incredibly potent chemical weapon.
Lucas, Beth, Viktor and Dimitri (yes, even Dimitri was let off tea-making duties for this one) headed to the Tube to stop him in his tracks. Which brings us neatly on to This Week's Missed Topical Touchstone - The Tube Strike. Imagine the beauty of Aibek arriving at Charing Cross with his bag of bioweapons only to find that all major lines were closed. Instead This Week's Topical Touchstone seemed to be the Cold War (and to an extent the Georgia/Russia conflict over South Assetia) neither of which are topical per se. All parties eventually found Aibek (surprisingly nippy for a man with a limp) who dropped his bag (which was in fact empty anyway) and headed for the surface, with both Lucas and Viktor (two men of athletic build without limps) somehow failing to catch him up.
He was heading for Doctor Kirby (who some of you will remember as Kemp, the werewolf-exploding priest cum evil genius of Being Human series 2, one of several facts to the detriment of his credibility as nice guy scientist who just happened to help invent one of the most dangerous chemical weapons in the history of humanity) (Donald Sumpter seems to play a lot of 'K' characters, perhaps that's where the first K went from 'Azakstan'...) to demand the location of his beloved bioweapons. He refused and was promptly beaten up (again impressive from a man with a limp) leaving limpy to take his anger out on Kirby's daughter.
Lucas, Beth and Viktor nearly caught Aibek at Kirby's daughter Meg's house, but he mananged to get out. Lucas and Beth left Viktor to console the poor girl. Viktor's idea of 'consoling' appeared to in fact be 'murder'. Yeah, that's right. Whodathunkit? That the FSB agent would turn out to be a wrong 'un? Aibek was caught and Beth's suspicion was suitable arounsed by Viktor smoking, sat on the bath with a dead Meg lying on the floor next to him.
Lucas and Viktor (fully equipped with spy camera to record the destruction of the bioweapon) travelled to the location where the dangerous chemical was cryogenically frozen and attempted to retrieve it, only for Aibek (bloody handy at escaping the authorities for a disabled man) to club them both over the head and make off with the bioweapon (when will you learn MI5?!). I say 'make off', he made it as far as the roof where Viktor followed him and shot him... just before Viktor himself was shot by Beth and the recorded footage cleverly put through Windows Movie Maker (presumably by Tariq) to make it look like Aibek murdered Viktor and made off with the swag (bioweapon) and then shown to the Russian ambassador.
Right at the end Laila Rouass turned up again (I've forgotten her character name already, I want to say 'Maya'?) - you'll remember that in this she's playing a doctor, like in Primeval, except for this time a real doctor rather than a 'doctor' specialising in the already dead or extinct species, which is surely cheating for a doctor, isn't it?- and kissed and made up (literally) with Lucas/John, who explained that he'd been in prison for 8 years (neglecting to mention that the 'prison' was run by the FSB and he was subject to torture and interrogation at every possible opportunity).
Quote of the Week
'Target's made a drop' Lucas North. Because sometimes even spy jargon has to sound like a euphemism for defecation.
Real Life Credibility Cameo of the Week
Kirsty Wark - To paraphrase a classic opening, they say you appear on Spooks twice in your career, once on the way up and once on the way down. Good to see a Newsnight presenter on again...
At the opening, all eyes were on the Azakstan Freedom Front (Azakstan is a bit like Kazakhstan only slightly more fictitious, one assumes) as they attempted ot break into a research facility before being promptly shot dead by balaclav-clad men including our very own Lucas.
Yup, it was a Russian-themed episode which can only mean comedy Russkie accents ahoy (one of Spooks' real vices) and plenty of terrifying bioweaponary. Harry (Peter Firth is literally the best actor in the world when it comes to being singularly uimpressed by everything) is eventually persuaded to allowed well-dressed FSB agent Viktor onto the grid to track Azis Aibek (who you will also remember as definitely non-Russian, non-handicapped Anderson in Sherlock, one of several facts to the detriment of his credibility as a terrorist from the ex-Soviet Union) an escaped AFF member with a gammy leg who was attempting to unleash an implausibly name but incredibly potent chemical weapon.
Lucas, Beth, Viktor and Dimitri (yes, even Dimitri was let off tea-making duties for this one) headed to the Tube to stop him in his tracks. Which brings us neatly on to This Week's Missed Topical Touchstone - The Tube Strike. Imagine the beauty of Aibek arriving at Charing Cross with his bag of bioweapons only to find that all major lines were closed. Instead This Week's Topical Touchstone seemed to be the Cold War (and to an extent the Georgia/Russia conflict over South Assetia) neither of which are topical per se. All parties eventually found Aibek (surprisingly nippy for a man with a limp) who dropped his bag (which was in fact empty anyway) and headed for the surface, with both Lucas and Viktor (two men of athletic build without limps) somehow failing to catch him up.
He was heading for Doctor Kirby (who some of you will remember as Kemp, the werewolf-exploding priest cum evil genius of Being Human series 2, one of several facts to the detriment of his credibility as nice guy scientist who just happened to help invent one of the most dangerous chemical weapons in the history of humanity) (Donald Sumpter seems to play a lot of 'K' characters, perhaps that's where the first K went from 'Azakstan'...) to demand the location of his beloved bioweapons. He refused and was promptly beaten up (again impressive from a man with a limp) leaving limpy to take his anger out on Kirby's daughter.
Lucas, Beth and Viktor nearly caught Aibek at Kirby's daughter Meg's house, but he mananged to get out. Lucas and Beth left Viktor to console the poor girl. Viktor's idea of 'consoling' appeared to in fact be 'murder'. Yeah, that's right. Whodathunkit? That the FSB agent would turn out to be a wrong 'un? Aibek was caught and Beth's suspicion was suitable arounsed by Viktor smoking, sat on the bath with a dead Meg lying on the floor next to him.
Lucas and Viktor (fully equipped with spy camera to record the destruction of the bioweapon) travelled to the location where the dangerous chemical was cryogenically frozen and attempted to retrieve it, only for Aibek (bloody handy at escaping the authorities for a disabled man) to club them both over the head and make off with the bioweapon (when will you learn MI5?!). I say 'make off', he made it as far as the roof where Viktor followed him and shot him... just before Viktor himself was shot by Beth and the recorded footage cleverly put through Windows Movie Maker (presumably by Tariq) to make it look like Aibek murdered Viktor and made off with the swag (bioweapon) and then shown to the Russian ambassador.
Right at the end Laila Rouass turned up again (I've forgotten her character name already, I want to say 'Maya'?) - you'll remember that in this she's playing a doctor, like in Primeval, except for this time a real doctor rather than a 'doctor' specialising in the already dead or extinct species, which is surely cheating for a doctor, isn't it?- and kissed and made up (literally) with Lucas/John, who explained that he'd been in prison for 8 years (neglecting to mention that the 'prison' was run by the FSB and he was subject to torture and interrogation at every possible opportunity).
Quote of the Week
'Target's made a drop' Lucas North. Because sometimes even spy jargon has to sound like a euphemism for defecation.
Real Life Credibility Cameo of the Week
Kirsty Wark - To paraphrase a classic opening, they say you appear on Spooks twice in your career, once on the way up and once on the way down. Good to see a Newsnight presenter on again...
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Mooks...
Yes, the Spooks series blog will happen... for nothing if not appalling laziness and lack of inspiration on my part. If you don't watch it, then I like to think that this is an able substitute. (If you missed part one of the blog, it can be found here)
I'll start with This Week's Topical Touchstone as it played an enormous part in the episode. Oil barons and crises dominated the 60 minutes, as the spies attempted to foil an attempt on the life of morally questionable Robert Westhouse. As it happened, last week's theory about Beth being killed off was brushed aside before the credits (a lot of action pre-credits in Spooks, if it was American ((or Downton Abbey)) there would almost certainly have to be adverts after the opening titles...) as, despite being involved in a lift-based bloodbath she was able to snaffle a phone from a dead man's hand and get back up for some espionage action once Lucas arrived on the scene.
After the credits finally arrived we were treated to a quick title screen simply saying "Lucas" an indication that this episode would be one of those convoluted affairs so beloved of big budget American dramas where we experience events from multiple perspectives (though technically Kurosawa's Rashomon deserves the credit/blame). The episode was very complicated as we discovered that not only did Westhouse have his own assassin on hand to counter the attempt on his life but the assassins responsible for the lift massacre were in fact attempting to kill Beth, who had sold out the brother of one of the killers to the authorities.
This was all explained from 3 different viewpoints with some other bits of action thrown in. We got to see Harry get his hands dirty again as he halted Westhouse (who had also planned a coup in Nigeria... did I mention that?) in his tracks. He nabbed a briefcase full of... something (I wasn't quite paying attention at this point and was duly punished for it) and headed for the door. Meanwhile the Nigerian assassin (the original one tasked with killing Westhouse before all the other assassins turned up) aimed his gun at the door, tasked with killing the briefcase-holder. We moved into slow motion and I prepared to eat last week's words only for Beth to run into the frame and knock her boss behind a conveniently placed vehicle.
Back at HQ (they still put up where it is on the screen... surely an appalling move for a secret service...) Lucas persuades Harry to retain the services of mildy untrustworthy Beth in return for accepting the role as Section Commander (there was no haggling over pay and Lucas wasn't required to go on an ICT course). Elsewhere our hero Mr. North found time to search through some trinkets from the days before his visit to Deed Poll and, as it happens, he had been involved with Laila Rouass of Footballers' Wives and Primeval fame (she was a doctor in this... a bit like in Primeval... but a proper doctor... with a stethoscope and things...). She wasn't overly pleased to be reacquainted but then popped up again towards the end of the episode, so you make of that what you will...
Next week, the ever-present, acronymical threat of the FSB rears its ugly head and the Deed Poll business gets out of hand...
Line(s) of the Week
'... he's been to the Ukraine more times in the last 3 months than is healthy.' Harry (or something to that effect) (It's also worth noting that Harry will probably appear here every week. He gets the best lines and Peter Firth delivers them so, so well)
I'll start with This Week's Topical Touchstone as it played an enormous part in the episode. Oil barons and crises dominated the 60 minutes, as the spies attempted to foil an attempt on the life of morally questionable Robert Westhouse. As it happened, last week's theory about Beth being killed off was brushed aside before the credits (a lot of action pre-credits in Spooks, if it was American ((or Downton Abbey)) there would almost certainly have to be adverts after the opening titles...) as, despite being involved in a lift-based bloodbath she was able to snaffle a phone from a dead man's hand and get back up for some espionage action once Lucas arrived on the scene.
After the credits finally arrived we were treated to a quick title screen simply saying "Lucas" an indication that this episode would be one of those convoluted affairs so beloved of big budget American dramas where we experience events from multiple perspectives (though technically Kurosawa's Rashomon deserves the credit/blame). The episode was very complicated as we discovered that not only did Westhouse have his own assassin on hand to counter the attempt on his life but the assassins responsible for the lift massacre were in fact attempting to kill Beth, who had sold out the brother of one of the killers to the authorities.
This was all explained from 3 different viewpoints with some other bits of action thrown in. We got to see Harry get his hands dirty again as he halted Westhouse (who had also planned a coup in Nigeria... did I mention that?) in his tracks. He nabbed a briefcase full of... something (I wasn't quite paying attention at this point and was duly punished for it) and headed for the door. Meanwhile the Nigerian assassin (the original one tasked with killing Westhouse before all the other assassins turned up) aimed his gun at the door, tasked with killing the briefcase-holder. We moved into slow motion and I prepared to eat last week's words only for Beth to run into the frame and knock her boss behind a conveniently placed vehicle.
Back at HQ (they still put up where it is on the screen... surely an appalling move for a secret service...) Lucas persuades Harry to retain the services of mildy untrustworthy Beth in return for accepting the role as Section Commander (there was no haggling over pay and Lucas wasn't required to go on an ICT course). Elsewhere our hero Mr. North found time to search through some trinkets from the days before his visit to Deed Poll and, as it happens, he had been involved with Laila Rouass of Footballers' Wives and Primeval fame (she was a doctor in this... a bit like in Primeval... but a proper doctor... with a stethoscope and things...). She wasn't overly pleased to be reacquainted but then popped up again towards the end of the episode, so you make of that what you will...
Next week, the ever-present, acronymical threat of the FSB rears its ugly head and the Deed Poll business gets out of hand...
Line(s) of the Week
'... he's been to the Ukraine more times in the last 3 months than is healthy.' Harry (or something to that effect) (It's also worth noting that Harry will probably appear here every week. He gets the best lines and Peter Firth delivers them so, so well)
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Military Intelligence...
Yesterday saw the return of excellent espionage-fest Spooks, meaning that today I don't have to rely on 'the news' to write a blog. Huzzah. I know that various other outlets offer series blogs, opinions and reviews of Spooks, but this is the only one with wild tangential ramblings and little or no actual professional journalistic standard.
We were given a frankly terrifically jam-packed opener, where more took place before that credits sequence than I actually remember happening in some of the entire earlier series. Essentially, Ros (who got blown up at the end of last series - Nope? Me neither... it all seems such a long time ago...) only managed to attract 5 people to her funeral prompting Harry into a crisis of conscience. "Do you ever feel like you can't go on?" He asked Ruth, seemingly unaware of the luck he's experienced being the only main character to survive from the first series. But surely good old Harry wouldn't tender his resignation to the new home secretary later in the episode, would he? Ruth then presented him with the bombshell that Robert Glenister's marvellous home secretary had all the while been in the employ of Nightingale (shady corporation behind much of the action in the last series), prompting everyone's favourite MI5 knight of the realm to pay him a visit with some 'special' whisky. Death by whisky, arguably one of the greatest methods Spooks has ever served up.
After the credits we found Lucas North, who'd traded his sharp-lined dark shirts for a grubby khaki jacket and an accent, aboard a ship, tasked with the assassination of a top Al Qaeda (or 'AQ' as the 'professionals' call them) chief (no, not that one). He had a chat with ship's captain Dimitri (from Russia via Romford... as it happens, because he was a spy too) but before he could carry out his orders the ship was boarded by, yes, Somali pirates. Which reminds me...
Tangent #1
The topicality of Spooks is marvellous, as well as the Somali pirates there were some nice references to the Coalition thanks to the brilliantly odious new home secretary, played by the excellent Simon Russell Beale and his slightly uneasy initial relationship with stalwart of the old guard Harry. I'm surely not the first to point out that Spooks' equal parts glamorous and gritty portrayal of life in the Secret Service is perhaps a little unrealistic -at no point does Lucas North accidentally leave some crucial documents on a train, Tariq is able to reel off reams of bizarre technobabble uninterrupted by workplace discrimination and main characters are dispensed with faster than you can yell 'don't open the door, Rupert, there's a car bomb' at your telly - however, it's able to get away with providing a frankly terrifying vision of a London constantly under attack from nefarious baddies, computer hackers, ex-spies, ex-mentors of spies and environmentalists because of the flecks of topicality that it drip-feeds each episode with.
Well, the Somali pirates threw a spanner in the works. Remember that Russian prostitute played by whatsherface out of Hallam Foe and Art School Confidential that I conveniently hadn't mentioned up until this point? No, of course you don't. Anyway, she's a spy too... well, private contractor called Beth who then helps Lucas to break away from the captives and eventually escape to an airfield, leaving Dimitri to face the remaining pirates and stop them from making it to Plymouth where they planned to splatter the Queen with exploding boat debris, which he did. However said explosives had mysteriously disappeared when he went to check them, along with some submersibles (what we used to call submarines when I was a boy... except sort of robot submarines... choc full of plastic explosive). The Queen splattering was a decoy! Beth turned up in the middle of all this, basically to ask Harry for a job, prompting some more brooding from Lucas. The big news however was that explosive submersibles had breached the Thames Barrier (tick off Thames Barrier -again - on your National Security Risks bingo card) were on their way to Westminster as we speak.
The only way to stop them (after threatening an unbudging teenage hacker at gunpoint failed) was for Harry to make exactly the kind of terrible decision that had prompted him to tender his resignation in the first place. Beneath the Houses of Parliament lay an EMF bomb that would knock out all electronics within a kilometre's radius. Ruth reminded him it was a last resort and would knock out all computer systems in that area. "So the country will have to struggle on without internet pornography and Minesweeper for a couple of hours. Do it." Drawled Harry, the spirit of Ros' classic 'I am not impressed by anything' rhetoric living on despite her immolation. Ruth then pointed out that it was all computers again, for instance pacemakers and life support machines. "Bugger!" Harry's face seemed to say. Nevertheless, he gave the order. Cue befuddled Londoners staring at their kaputt mobiles on Westminster Bridge.
Wowzers trousers, all that action, surely no more major revelations can be made in this episode, right? Wrong! Harry told the home secretary to tear up his letter of resignation, providing Peter Firth a stay of execution for another year (that's worth 7 in Spooks years, mind). Elsewhere, Lucas bumped into a man who'd had a stroke who called him 'John' prompting a mortified look reminiscent of Armitage's classic turn as Guy of Gisborne, very much the real star of BBC's Robin Hood. The stroke victim then dropped a briefcase at Lucas' feet and left.
Bloody hell, eh? Revelations all round. What does Beth know? Is she really going to be killed off next week as the preview suggests (bloody preview spoilers... tsk...)? John? What's all this about John?
Well, frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a curveball and he'd just gone to Deed Poll...
Line(s) of the Week:
We were given a frankly terrifically jam-packed opener, where more took place before that credits sequence than I actually remember happening in some of the entire earlier series. Essentially, Ros (who got blown up at the end of last series - Nope? Me neither... it all seems such a long time ago...) only managed to attract 5 people to her funeral prompting Harry into a crisis of conscience. "Do you ever feel like you can't go on?" He asked Ruth, seemingly unaware of the luck he's experienced being the only main character to survive from the first series. But surely good old Harry wouldn't tender his resignation to the new home secretary later in the episode, would he? Ruth then presented him with the bombshell that Robert Glenister's marvellous home secretary had all the while been in the employ of Nightingale (shady corporation behind much of the action in the last series), prompting everyone's favourite MI5 knight of the realm to pay him a visit with some 'special' whisky. Death by whisky, arguably one of the greatest methods Spooks has ever served up.
After the credits we found Lucas North, who'd traded his sharp-lined dark shirts for a grubby khaki jacket and an accent, aboard a ship, tasked with the assassination of a top Al Qaeda (or 'AQ' as the 'professionals' call them) chief (no, not that one). He had a chat with ship's captain Dimitri (from Russia via Romford... as it happens, because he was a spy too) but before he could carry out his orders the ship was boarded by, yes, Somali pirates. Which reminds me...
Tangent #1
The topicality of Spooks is marvellous, as well as the Somali pirates there were some nice references to the Coalition thanks to the brilliantly odious new home secretary, played by the excellent Simon Russell Beale and his slightly uneasy initial relationship with stalwart of the old guard Harry. I'm surely not the first to point out that Spooks' equal parts glamorous and gritty portrayal of life in the Secret Service is perhaps a little unrealistic -at no point does Lucas North accidentally leave some crucial documents on a train, Tariq is able to reel off reams of bizarre technobabble uninterrupted by workplace discrimination and main characters are dispensed with faster than you can yell 'don't open the door, Rupert, there's a car bomb' at your telly - however, it's able to get away with providing a frankly terrifying vision of a London constantly under attack from nefarious baddies, computer hackers, ex-spies, ex-mentors of spies and environmentalists because of the flecks of topicality that it drip-feeds each episode with.
Well, the Somali pirates threw a spanner in the works. Remember that Russian prostitute played by whatsherface out of Hallam Foe and Art School Confidential that I conveniently hadn't mentioned up until this point? No, of course you don't. Anyway, she's a spy too... well, private contractor called Beth who then helps Lucas to break away from the captives and eventually escape to an airfield, leaving Dimitri to face the remaining pirates and stop them from making it to Plymouth where they planned to splatter the Queen with exploding boat debris, which he did. However said explosives had mysteriously disappeared when he went to check them, along with some submersibles (what we used to call submarines when I was a boy... except sort of robot submarines... choc full of plastic explosive). The Queen splattering was a decoy! Beth turned up in the middle of all this, basically to ask Harry for a job, prompting some more brooding from Lucas. The big news however was that explosive submersibles had breached the Thames Barrier (tick off Thames Barrier -again - on your National Security Risks bingo card) were on their way to Westminster as we speak.
The only way to stop them (after threatening an unbudging teenage hacker at gunpoint failed) was for Harry to make exactly the kind of terrible decision that had prompted him to tender his resignation in the first place. Beneath the Houses of Parliament lay an EMF bomb that would knock out all electronics within a kilometre's radius. Ruth reminded him it was a last resort and would knock out all computer systems in that area. "So the country will have to struggle on without internet pornography and Minesweeper for a couple of hours. Do it." Drawled Harry, the spirit of Ros' classic 'I am not impressed by anything' rhetoric living on despite her immolation. Ruth then pointed out that it was all computers again, for instance pacemakers and life support machines. "Bugger!" Harry's face seemed to say. Nevertheless, he gave the order. Cue befuddled Londoners staring at their kaputt mobiles on Westminster Bridge.
Wowzers trousers, all that action, surely no more major revelations can be made in this episode, right? Wrong! Harry told the home secretary to tear up his letter of resignation, providing Peter Firth a stay of execution for another year (that's worth 7 in Spooks years, mind). Elsewhere, Lucas bumped into a man who'd had a stroke who called him 'John' prompting a mortified look reminiscent of Armitage's classic turn as Guy of Gisborne, very much the real star of BBC's Robin Hood. The stroke victim then dropped a briefcase at Lucas' feet and left.
Bloody hell, eh? Revelations all round. What does Beth know? Is she really going to be killed off next week as the preview suggests (bloody preview spoilers... tsk...)? John? What's all this about John?
Well, frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a curveball and he'd just gone to Deed Poll...
Line(s) of the Week:
'Don't think I won't kill you because you're a teenage girl.' Lucas
'I'm suitably ennobled.' Harry
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