British series seldom interest me. Maybe it's the dryness of the plot, or the heavy reliance on the dialogue (bad for a 'cheena' person like me who relies on English or Chinese subtitles), or whatever it may be. Not that I watched a lot of American series either (in fact, I don't at all, unless you count The Simpsons and The Nanny, which I am an avid fan of), but the prospect of even starting on a British drama serial never sounded attractive to me.

But perhaps it's because of thriving state of British cinema, or perhaps it's just my changing taste in movies which happened to include many made-in-Britian movies, I found myself watching Spooks, a 2002 serial which is now being shown on the Hallmark channel. And oh boy I think I am gonna be seriously hooked on this. So much so that I've changed my screensaver to this really cool one from Spooks (season 3).


The original cast of Spooks (2002 - )

I have no doubts that the reason why I even started watching this was because it was touted as Matthew Macfadyen vehicle to fame in Britian. Yup, I had just finished watching a rented copy of the movie version of Pride and Prejudice while his excellent interpretation of Paul Prior in In My Father's Den was still fresh in my mind. So imagine my excitement when I realized that the Hallmark channel was showing it! And it was the first season too!

Ok, not that ideal in the end cos my first episode of Spooks was actually the 5th episode, ie. the 2nd last episode of season 1 (that is one SHORT season!!!).

So far, from the 2 short episodes I've seen, each episode is a case on its own, while the principal characters include senior MI5 agent Tom Quinn (MacFadyen), his subordinates Zoe (Keeley Hawes) and Danny (David Oyelowo), and his superiors Harry (Peter Firth) and Tessa (Jenny Agutter) with personal stories spans across the series, like all respectable thriller serials. The beautiful thing about this series, is that the storyline about national security is taut and excellently paced, while intertwining effectively with the personal lives of the characters, whose stories are affecting and real, topped with superb dialogue which includes sprinkles of good 'ol British wit and humor. I say, this is one of the most addictive dramas I have watched in a long time. And I guess it being British is a breath of fresh air to the usual Hong Kong or Korean dramas I've been watching.

So if you have a chance, do watch it!

Trivia

Some interesting facts about MI5. The term 'spooks' actually is a popular colloquialism of spies in Britian, and this series is essentially about MI5, the British counter-intelligence and security agency (MI refers to Military Intelligence). According to Wikipedia.org, its remit covers the protection of British parliamentary democracy and economic interests, and fighting serious crime, militant separatism, terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom and is mainly concerned with internal security.

Why MI5, you say? What about MI1, MI2, MI3 or MI6? Well, according to Wikipedia.org, again, the British government did not have just one MI in the beginning. There were, in fact, a total of 6 divisions each to serve various sections of internal and international security issues. However, over the years, these sub-divisions have been subsumed under only 2 MI departments - MI5 for internal security, and MI6 for external security, and for good reason too considering that these ex-MIs were created specifically during WWII and the Cold War periods.

See here for more details on the history and role of MI5.

Spooks the series ran for 3 years with 4 seasons in total up till now and a 5th season on the cards to be released later this year. However, the main cast of Spooks started leaving from the 3rd season onwards, starting with MacFadyen (character resigned after facing serious disillusionment), followed by Keeley Hawes (character was forced to resign and assume a new identity due to some judgement error) and finally David Oyelowo (character killed by terrorists). From season 4 onwards, Rupert Penry-Jones' character, Adam Carter, has taken over as the main character. Like most popular and long-running series, this of course led to much discontentment among Spooks fans who followed from the beginning.

In the States, the title of this series was changed to MI5 instead for 2 reasons: 1) the word 'spook' is an old racist slang term for African Americans, and the network did not wish to risk the possibility of causing offence, 2) In the US, 'spook' is more generally associated with the CIA.
More interesting trivia, though this time it's small-town gossip.... Matthew MacFadyen married his Spooks co-star Keeley Hawes just a years after they worked on the first season, and they had their first child a month later.