Spooks: Code 9 - Kicking a Dead Horse

Warning: Contains spoilers

The arrival of a spin-off from the highly successful BBC series 'Spooks' was certainly welcomed by many fans. Personally, I was hoping a new series with a different approach could revitalise the tired format and give viewers a return to the brilliance of the first three seasons of 'Spooks'.

The original show had jumped the shark quite definitely after the departure of the last of the original cast at the end of series three. With no Matthew McFadden, Keeley Hawes or David Oyelowo - all of whom have progressed onto great things - the series began to limp through more and more improbable story lines. Last year's series six was a new nadir for the show. If it is possible to jump the shark a second time, they managed it with the convoluted and overblown Iranian umbrella plot and some highly ridiculous set-pieces.

But would 'Spooks: Code 9' revitalise the brand or continue the downward trend?

Gimmicks Without Substance

The idea for a 'Spooks' spin-off apparently occurred after BBC3 had received such phenomenal success with the 'Doctor Who' spin-off 'Torchwood'. Therefore, producers hoped to produce a program catering to a particular BBC3 audience in the hope of repeating the record-breaking figures 'Torchwood' received for the channel. Last Sunday saw the first two episodes go to air, back to back. I think it's pretty safe to say that episode three will receive a significant drop in ratings as these opening instalments were particularly awful.

Yet it has so much going for it. Setting the series in 2013, a few months after a dirty bomb has devastated the London Olympics, could have produced a wonderfully bleak future-vision as a back-drop for some inventive drama. What we got was precious little thought to what the real impact of such an event would be. The rest of England is able to continue almost as normal, with a refugee problem the only major concern. Check-points and a higher military presence may be in evidence, but the wiping out of one of the world's major economic hubs seems to not have dented mainstream society. People still party in nightclubs, rationing isn't in place, life seems to continue as normal with ID cards and some occasional security fencing the only visible signs of change.

The backdrop has not been exploited for full dramatic potential, left more as a contrivance to launch the series rather than a detailed canvas for dramatic revelations. The series is still pretty much a weekly terrorism hunt with occasional references to the London bomb and therefore doesn't differ too dramatically from the parent show.

Spy Kids

One of my main issues with the format has to do with the decision to make this new team of agents entirely all young and hip. With the rather strange and arbitrary statement in the opening moments that terrorists are getting younger, requiring younger agents to infiltrate them, the series has created a completely unbelievable premise for why all the characters barely look old enough to shave. The problem with this youthful contrivance - even if it an obvious attempt to go after a younger audience - is that none of the characters carry any kind of weight. There is no senior figure with the experience and gravitas to hold a scene together. This show desperately needs a 'Harry' or 'Tom Quinn' to lend authority to the actions of this wholly unbelievable band of spy-kids. Despite an attempt to explain how most of MI5 was wiped out in the London event, I find it hard to believe that recruiters would exclusively go after new agents that seem more interested in how much they can drink in their trendy shared apartment.

The secondary problem with this approach is that the actors also lack weight and experience. The performances are particularly weak and uninspiring, making the whole production look cheap and amateurish.

So if the backdrop is under-utilised and not properly developed and the characters are naff 'yoof' ciphers with no depth, does the scriptwriting offer any glimmers of hope?

Writing the Future

Sadly, again there is precious little to get excited about. No plot twist is original. In fact, the scripts fall into many of the same traps the mother series has fallen into since series four.

Way back in the first series of 'Spooks', the death of a major cast member in episode two was a tremendous shock, intended to shake up the audience and demonstrate that the show wasn't necessarily going to follow the standard formula for serial television. No one was safe. By the fourth series, this strategy had become a cliche in itself. The shock value of the character death was gone, replaced by a knowingness that deaths were written around contracts coming to an end rather than genuine story concerns. Why else would so many characters give up their last breath in either the first or last episode of a series?

This lazy writing has crossed over into the new series. The 'major plot twist' was, predictably, a death played out in the now usual fashion. The next major twist was the revelation that there is a traitor on the team - something else already done to death in 'Spooks'. With no originality and very few attempts to draw drama from the backdrop they created, these scripts just plod along ticking the boxes until the end titles roll.

Oh, and one last thing. That union jack screen wipe effect used between scenes can get lost right now. It's gimmicky, annoying, distracting and just reeks of a production team trying to be edgy and cool without actually knowing what that means.

'Spooks' was once one of my favourite shows. The first three seasons have been watched over and over in this house, savoured for the performances of an incredible cast against sumptuous direction and scripts that surprised and shattered notions of spy television. 'Spooks: Code 9' just repeats the failings of the last three seasons of 'Spooks'; limp and cliched writing, a distinct loss in acting weight and some incredibly misguided story directions. Just stop kicking the dead horse. It would have been far better to remember the series in its heyday rather than watch its memory continually defiled this way.