Spooks

I am attempting to write this blog as a review for the British television series Spooks. I have spent way more hours than I wish to contemplate writing essays and analysis’s where I take my personal feelings about something out. So I am going to make this review personal.

I love the television series Spooks.

The English/Art geek in me feels the need to point out that any pop show in which the artists involved quote Shakespeare, create allusions to fairy-tales and allusions to King Arthur mixed into a modern spy show. I am so on board.

Tonight I will watch the final episode. I must admit I am very saddened by this idea. I will literally miss this show. I remember my dad once shared a quote that said “Happiness is discovering P.G. Woodhouse for the first time.” (I am sorry that I do not know who first made this statement to give them proper credit.) To me the same is true with Spooks. Yes I can and will re-watch them and enjoy them for years and years. However nothing matches the thrill of watching an episode of Spooks wondering how on earth it will possibly end without world disaster—or without a main character dead or miserable in painful, emotionally wrenching and probably humiliating manner.

That last paragraph makes me feel like anyone reading it will assume I have completely sick tastes. This is true to an extent. But while I love the extreme situations that Spooks pulls. But I love the extreme emotions that come in hand with the extreme situations. What is it they say in The Princess Bride? “Sword fights, revenge, true love, miracles!” Spooks is bombs, poison, bullets, murder, commitment issues, black mail, sacrifice, betrayal, torture, kidnapping, rescues, judgment calls, extremists, true love. As the character Danny says “Great acts of hatred also create great acts of love.” This show has some of the best emotional scenes. I am so going to miss the emotional roller coaster of Spooks.

So while I am so proud of the production team that has decided to end this show while it is ahead I am partly with the character Ruth when she tearfully begs: “Oh no, please, please don’t let this be the end.”