skyking-14 The good:It's a very good drama with excellent plots and very good acting. The writing makes for very good drama and the photography is top-notch! If you ignore the national labels and treat it like it's about a fictional planet it can be quite enjoyable. In particular the characters of Harry, Roz and Jo are very well developed and quite compelling.The bad:There is really, quite shockingly, a VERY PRONOUNCED anti-American bias in the writing... so much so that at times is appears to be socialist propaganda! There was even an episode (7.4) where they actually presented a senior Al Qaeda representative as if he were a "moderate" between Iran and the US! THAT is absolutely laughable nonsense propaganda... and specifically offensive to the victims of 9/11, as well as to those of us who were once stationed in that country as part of the US Armed Forces! This is an attitude which I personally knew was NOT the opinion of the British subjects with whom I associated during that treasured time in my military experience! One main character even refers to the CIA with "God defend me from my friends, from my enemies I can defend myself..." of course she shortly turns out to be a Soviet spy!Seriously, given that the BBC has recently been outed for hiding the sexual abuse of children by one of it's knighted hosts after bashing the Catholic Church for the same offense, this series, while dramatically enjoyable, leaves one with little option but to question the credibility of this once respected voice of "journalism"!

Carlo This is one of the best TV series of its kind. Most spy stories are far-fetched tales of brave heroes who single-handedly save the planet from villains ready the blow up the whole world, and of course they do it all by themselves, by sleeping with beautiful women, jumping from 50 metre tall buildings, killing an army of villains with just one revolver, etc etc etc - think of the 007 and the Mission Impossible movies, for example.This is way more realistic. Of course there are some holes in the plot, but in general this TV series tends to be about team work by a group of ordinary people who happen to work for MI5, and whose work, in fact, takes its toll on their private lives. The actors of this TV series will plant bugs in a house, try to infiltrate terrorist cells, do intelligence work etc all to stop the villain in each episode, but it is all quite realistic: there isn't a computer analyst that can retrieve everyone's school records from 50 years ago in 10 seconds, like in Criminal Minds, nor unrealistic heroes of the kind played by Sean Connery, Tom Cruise, etc. Nonetheless, or, actually, because of this, the stories are never banal and, in fact, most episodes are mini-thrillers: you think you figured it all out but only in the last ten minutes do you realise that you, in fact, hadn't.Another aspect I really appreciated is that it doesn't try to portrait security services as the 'good guys' against the 'bad guys' who simply 'hate us for our freedoms'. In many episodes of the show, for example, the motives of the villains are related to things like war atrocities committed by Britain and by Nato. You will hardly find any of that in American shows. Take '24', for example: that show is all about 'us' vs 'them', about how the end justifies the means, and about how it is right to torture prisoners, etc. Spooks is entirely different, which is one of the many reasons it is one of the best TV series of its kind, ever.

TheLittleSongbird I love a good series, and especially one that grabs you in just from the word go and thrills you. Spooks does exactly that. I watched it right from the first episode, being intrigued by what it aimed for but not expecting it to be as good as it was, and I have been a faithful fan ever since.The acting is definitely a high point. Rupert Penry Jones, Hermione Norris(one of those actresses who brings everything to her roles no matter the overall outcome of the show/drama), Miranda Raison and Matthew McFadyen also gave wonderful performances. But as of late, the revelation has been Peter Firth, Harry is a very interesting character and as of now the heart of the series without dominating too much that we don't care for anyone else and much more of one than you'd think.Firth handles the brooding, gruff persona brilliantly. The cast are helped by a vast majority of things. The characters have depth and are actually intriguing, I see great characters who you identify with and keep identifying with, I see characters that are interesting to start with but lose something later on or I even see characters that are little more than cardboard cutouts. The characters of Spooks from start to finish, yes even in the secondary characters(which my previous point was mainly referring to), fit in the first category.The writing is also wonderful, the idea at the start was always an interesting angle and the writing explores this in an intelligent manner, without feeling formulaic. The story lines are always thrilling and well-constructed, while I also love the stylish filming, crisp editing, assured direction and authentic sound quality.All in all, an amazing series, one of my favourites. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Hayden Wheeler I have loved this show pretty much from the start. The BBC have produced many outstanding dramas across the years and this sits very comfortably with the best; I Claudius, Elizabeth R, War & Peace and so on.The acting, direction and scripts are nothing but brilliant which makes it one of the very few "Must-See" programmes on television.I have just seen the last episode in Series 10 which contains a beautiful twist at the end. I never saw that one coming!Throughout each series there are plots, sub-plots and even sub-sub-plots. The characters may change from time to time but this adds to the freshness of the programme. In this age of obsession with celebrity and reality TV, Spooks has risen far above the dross. My only hope is that a Series 11 becomes reality.