Spooks: Series 8 (2009)

I think I can confidently say that Spooks is the best drama that the BBC currently produces. And now I've got to wait a whole damn year to find out what has happened to Ros and Lucas! Aargh! Nearly every year Spooks does this to me, leaves me with a massive cliff-hanger and then waits months (during which time I've usually forgotten the circumstances of the last episode) to resolve it. But I keep going back every series, it's like a drug! 

Last series, when they killed off the beautiful Adam (Rupert Penry-Jones) I thought Spooks would never be the same. Hermione Norris' Ros, a stone-cold bitch in earlier series, turned out to be an icy, dry-humoured revelation when she took over from Adam, and she's easily the best thing about the show, although Harry Pierce (Peter Firth), stalwart head of MI5 since series 1 runs a very close second. Spooks has a difficult job when it kills of it's leads when it comes to filling their shoes - it took me a little while to warm to Richard Armiage's Lucas North, but now he's as integral to the show as Malcolm. Oh wait - Malcolm retired earlier this series!! Actually I've not missed him as much as I thought I would, probably because I'm distracted by his replacement's beautiful eyes. Tariq (Shazad Latiff) was introduced quickly and it's testament to the writing on Spooks that he feels like he's been there for years. Ruth (Nicola Walker) came back this year too, for more frustrated flirting with Harry, and I guess to replace poor Jo (Miranda Raison) who never really reached her potential as a spy - she should have been chief of section some day! 

Spooks always keeps me gripped from start to finish - even when I've no idea what's going on, which can be frustratingly often! I love the preposterousness of some of the situations and dialogue, and can't help a small chuckle every week when Harry declares that if they don't solve this week's disaster the UK will be a third world country, or there will be World War III! Of course it's ridiculous that this same handful of characters can save Britain from ruin so often, but it's hard to care about such inaccuracies when the stories and the characters are this good. Where Spooks wins out over other dramas is that none of the characters are safe - lead characters can be killed off in any episode, deaths are not just saved for episode finales as Jo and Adam would tell you. Well they would, if they hadn't been shot and blown up, respectively. This means that when the spies are put in harms way, you genuinely fear for them - unlike in The X-Files for example, where you know Mulder isn't going to die mid-way through a season (well, bad example, 'cos he died a couple of times, and had a funeral mid-way through season 8, but anyway...). 

I hope that if they ever decide to get rid of Harry that Spooks will end then too, because all though it has survived many a cast change over the years, Spooks without Harry would be like Ugly Betty without Betty or Ashes to Ashes without Gene Hunt. It's going to be a long wait to find out whether Ros and Lucas are still alive... And I'd better not find out that Harry was killed in that explosion or I'll have to give up watching.