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Jul. 8th, 2003 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanWatched Spooks again last night, in an effort to work out what in particular is so wrong with this show. Since many of you are unlikely to be watching it anyway, I'd better explain that it's a series of hour-long episodes set in MI5. Almost a version of The Bill for this scary new world we all lurched into a year and ten months ago.
It isn't a bad premise, all things considered.
Last night's episode was rather different. Essentially, the premise was that the office is hit by a major incident alert drill. Except... is it a drill? As the episode goes on, the incident becomes more and more epic, and the team gradually become convinced that it is in fact for real.... So there's dramatic tension as events take place -maybe- beyond the immediate view of the camera, plus the internal drama in the office the episode concentrates on as the team strives to cope. Etc etc.
Which has the potential to be rather good, on the face of it.
It wasn't.
The first problem is that for the episode as directed to work properly, the viewer has to have real doubt in their head over whether this is for real or not. You don't, because you know this is an ongoing series, and that an hour-long serial in manner of The Bill, or ER does not suddenly turn into a post-apocalyptic fantasy. The reason is that the basic concept of such serials (discounting the obviously fantastic ones, like Buffy) is that you need to "believe" each episode in its turn might really be happening. So they can't diverge too much from the world as we know it.
(I digress to quote my friend and fellow culturnik, Martin, on Dawson's Creek and Buffy:
"Why watch Dawson's Creek? What reason is there? Buffy has it all plus vampires." This has nothing to do with anything, but these words are, in my opinion, wise. Also, Dawson is an arse... Blonde woman quite cute though.. oops, did I give something away there...)
Me, I'd rather like it if Spooks or the Bill or The West Wing did suddenly turn into post apocalyptic fantasy, but I know it isn't going to happen. Had the end of the Spooks episode left us in a nuclear wasteland I'd have been absolutely shocked, and also massively impressed.
But there is a problem with the series over and above the conceptual limitations on this one episode. It's very simple.
The acting is possibly the worst I have seen on prime time drama in the last ten years. Matthew MacFadyen, as Tom Quin, Our Hero, deserves to be tarred and feathered for some of the most wooden delivery imaginable (admittedly, the lines don't give him much, but he could make something of it). Keeley Hawes, as Zoe, and to some extent Natasha Little, as Ruth, struggle valiantly to save the day and make something of their characters stock emotional traumas, but for the rest it's a shambles.
It's a shame, but the conclusion has to be: don't go near it with a bargepole, unless the only alternative is watching Big Brother.
It isn't a bad premise, all things considered.
Last night's episode was rather different. Essentially, the premise was that the office is hit by a major incident alert drill. Except... is it a drill? As the episode goes on, the incident becomes more and more epic, and the team gradually become convinced that it is in fact for real.... So there's dramatic tension as events take place -maybe- beyond the immediate view of the camera, plus the internal drama in the office the episode concentrates on as the team strives to cope. Etc etc.
Which has the potential to be rather good, on the face of it.
It wasn't.
The first problem is that for the episode as directed to work properly, the viewer has to have real doubt in their head over whether this is for real or not. You don't, because you know this is an ongoing series, and that an hour-long serial in manner of The Bill, or ER does not suddenly turn into a post-apocalyptic fantasy. The reason is that the basic concept of such serials (discounting the obviously fantastic ones, like Buffy) is that you need to "believe" each episode in its turn might really be happening. So they can't diverge too much from the world as we know it.
(I digress to quote my friend and fellow culturnik, Martin, on Dawson's Creek and Buffy:
"Why watch Dawson's Creek? What reason is there? Buffy has it all plus vampires." This has nothing to do with anything, but these words are, in my opinion, wise. Also, Dawson is an arse... Blonde woman quite cute though.. oops, did I give something away there...)
Me, I'd rather like it if Spooks or the Bill or The West Wing did suddenly turn into post apocalyptic fantasy, but I know it isn't going to happen. Had the end of the Spooks episode left us in a nuclear wasteland I'd have been absolutely shocked, and also massively impressed.
But there is a problem with the series over and above the conceptual limitations on this one episode. It's very simple.
The acting is possibly the worst I have seen on prime time drama in the last ten years. Matthew MacFadyen, as Tom Quin, Our Hero, deserves to be tarred and feathered for some of the most wooden delivery imaginable (admittedly, the lines don't give him much, but he could make something of it). Keeley Hawes, as Zoe, and to some extent Natasha Little, as Ruth, struggle valiantly to save the day and make something of their characters stock emotional traumas, but for the rest it's a shambles.
It's a shame, but the conclusion has to be: don't go near it with a bargepole, unless the only alternative is watching Big Brother.
