Oh My God, They Killed Colin

The Spooks are back, and they’re continuing in their quest to defend Britain by whatever means necessary from the evils of terrorism and other miscellaneous nastiness. The cliffhanger from last season was quickly wrapped up in the opening episode this time round but the pace has been unrelenting. The ever-changing, and often dying, personnel have been reshuffled once again as the angry Ros has surprisingly joined the MI5 team to (sort of) replace Adam’s deceased wife, and within the opening hour, another of the team, Colin, had been sent to meet his maker. It is this fearless story-telling and edge-of-your-seat plotting that keeps viewers of Spooks enthralled, it’s tough to think of another show (other than 24) whereby you never know who’s gonna make it to the end. The characters are given depth by ingenious scriptwriting and really rather splendid acting, illustrated brilliantly at the moment by the stuttering beginings of a romance between Ruth and Harry, but this is never allowed to get in the way of the story. Honourable mention should also go to Raza Jaffrey’s portrayal of Zaf who always seems to be the centre of the action yet maintains his implaccable coolness at all times.

This new BBC tactic of premiering shows on BBC3 to be replayed for the non-digital masses on BBC1 the following week means it’s sometimes hard to know exactly who’s seen what so far, but The Other Viewer and I are four episodes in and every one has been a cracker (small “c”). The two-part opener was aa tense thriller that dealt with a coup attempt by disgruntled, and power mad politico’s and media types, episode three was an edgy tale of an Al-Qaeda cell that Zaf had infiltrated, and episode four was a brilliantly paced, intriguing story based around an African-aid conference. I cannot wait for the next six installments.

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Tags: 24, Adam-Carter, BBC1, BBC3, Harry-Pearce, MI5, Modern Drama, Ros-Myers, Spooks, Zafar-Younis