Spooks series 1

The first series of the British

, 18 August 2003 in Region 4, and 13 January 2004 in Region 1.

Episodes

See also: List of Spooks episodes

No. overall	No. in series	Title [1]	Directed by [1]	Written by [1]	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) [2]
1	1	"Thou Shalt Not Kill"	Bharat Nalluri	David Wolstencroft	13 May 2002 (2002-05-13)	9.60
Section D of pro-life movement, led by American terrorist Mary Kane (Lisa Eichhorn), who smuggled herself and 20 bombs into the country to set up cells. Zoe Reynolds (Keeley Hawes) poses as a sympathiser, and learns of Kane's next intended target. Zoe then poses as the target, Diane Sullivan, and lures Kane to a trap, and she is arrested. After Kane informs team leader Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen) of the location of every cell she set up in the United Kingdom, he sends her to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which returns her to Florida to be executed. Meanwhile, Tom enters a relationship with a civilian, Ellie Simm (Esther Hall ) after an unrelated operation, going under the pseudonym Matthew Archer, a civil servant.
2	2	"Looking After Our Own"	Bharat Nalluri	David Wolstencroft	20 May 2002 (2002-05-20)	8.10
Tom and junior case officer Helen Flynn (Lisa Faulkner) are sent to expose right-wing leader Robert Osbourne (Kevin McNally), who is planning a race war in the UK. MI5 previously attempted to bug his home, only to find high-end security equipment. Tom and Helen pose as a married couple to befriend Claire, Osbourne's wife, who is being abused by him. MI5 believe that Osbourne intends to choke the asylum system, incite the race war and have Member of Parliament Bill Watson raise the issue of asylum seekers. After they recruit Claire to help them, Tom and Helen are kidnapped by Osbourne's gang to be interrogated. When Tom refuses to divulge any information, Osbourne forces Helen's hand, then head, into a deep fryer, before having her shot in the head. Claire then causes a distraction to allow Tom's escape, by throwing a cigarette into the fryer, igniting it. Though pressured by the government to continue tailing Osbourne, superior Harry Pearce (Peter Firth ) has him assassinated as retribution for Helen's death.
3	3	"One Last Dance"	Rob Bailey	Simon Mirren	27 May 2002 (2002-05-27)	7.30
Zoe is sent on a standard bugging operation at the Turkish Kurdish rebels, who hold everybody hostage and demand the release of their captured comrades. In the meantime, Tessa Phillips (Jenny Agutter) recognises Johnny Marks (Christopher Fulford), a former asset and lover of Tessa's, who was believed to have been killed in a car bomb in Northern Ireland several years before. It is revealed that Marks is handling the Kurdish rebels as a distraction to break into a nearby bank to obtain the identities of every MI5 and MI6 agent. Tom is assigned to negotiate the hostage situation, while Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo) and a team arrive at the bank to engage Marks' men. MI5 fake a news report detailing the "release" of the captured rebels. Tom is shot and wounded by a rebel before CO19 (armed police) take back the consulate. Marks escapes and visits Tessa that evening. Marks learns Tessa was once pregnant with his child; after a change of heart, he only takes the stolen money, leaving behind the files on the agents' identities.
4	4	"Traitor's Gate"	Rob Bailey	Howard Brenton	4 June 2002 (2002-06-04)	5.99
While observing an Air Traffic Control system in an effort to bring down Bush's plane. After Salter is captured, he hangs himself before revealing what he did. However, Danny realises his intentions, and as a result, Bush's plane is redirected to Paris. Meanwhile, Zoe realises Tessa is running phantom agents for monetary gain, and is bribed £10,000 to keep quiet. Tom is forced to reveal to Ellie that he is a spy. Ellie grows to accept it to some degree by the end of the episode.
5	5	"The Rose Bed Memoirs"	Andy Wilson	Howard Brenton	10 June 2002 (2002-06-10)	6.75
Disgraced MP and born-again Christian Hampton Wilder (Tim Pigott-Smith) is released from prison after serving a sentence for embezzlement. He reveals to Harry that he wrote memoirs, which implicate fellow MP Richard Maynard (Nicholas Farrell) and himself of performing illegal arms deals. However the memoirs have been stolen. Through the investigation behind Maynard, it is revealed that MI6 stole the memoirs; Jools Siviter (Hugh Laurie) hands them over, but as MI5 review them, they find it is nothing but explicit "trash". Maynard suddenly resigns to teach at Harvard University, as Jools reveals to Harry that Maynard is a CIA asset. Meanwhile, Tom's relationship with Ellie is further strained when her daughter Maisie's (Heather Cave ) father returns. When the father digs into Tom's professional life, he is confronted by MI5 officers and is forced to disappear. Zoe is struggling to deal with Tessa's corruption, and Danny attempts to convince her to tell Harry.
6	6	"Lesser of Two Evils" "Mean, Dirty, Nasty"[3]	Andy Wilson	David Wolstencroft & Howard Brenton	17 June 2002 (2002-06-17)	7.21
Tom upgrades the security systems in his home to keep Ellie and Maisie safe from potential harm. Meanwhile, the head of an Irish splinter group, Patrick McCann ( Broad Street Station. MI5 is able to prevent any casualties in the attack and fool McCann, and he gives Tom the needed details of the attack via a laptop; special forces are able to kill two Asabiyah terrorists before they can fire a rocket at Sefton B. Zoe finally brings herself to reveal Tessa's corruption to Harry, who then fires Tessa. Later, McCann calls Tom to reveal that his group rigged the laptop with C4 explosive with the hopes of disabling MI5. However, Tom has stored the laptop in his home. The security measures at his home malfunction, and the series ends on a cliffhanger with Ellie and Maisie trapped in the home, and Tom outside helpless to save them.

Cast

Ten main cast members are listed in the first series. Matthew Macfadyen plays primary protagonist and senior case officer Tom Quinn.^[4] Creator David Wolstencroft found Tom to be the most fun, yet hardest character to write for due to him being the main character. When portraying the character, Macfadyen did what he was told to do; he did not want to create a backstory for the character as he did not find merit in doing so.^[5] Keeley Hawes plays junior case officer Zoe Reynolds. Hawes was attracted to the parallels between acting and spying.^[4] The actress described Zoe as "a feisty little number. She can be quite cold and you don't really know her," and the series sees "flashes of how she can be".^[6] David Oyelowo plays fellow junior case officer Danny Hunter.^[4] Oyelowo first became aware of the show when his agent brought him the script, and was quickly intrigued by the project, and wanted a part to play in it. He downplayed his enthusiasm to get the part.^[7] Macfadyen, Hawes and Oyelowo were initially wary of playing the lead characters even though the actors were in their mid-twenties, but eventually felt that they earned the right to be in the series.^[8]

Peter Firth plays the head of the counter-terrorism department, Harry Pearce. Firth was interested in the series after hearing of Brenton's involvement in the project, and thought Spooks was "special" and "different" from British television at the time. Firth would "pepper" the dialogue with quotations from famous classical works, with moral and religious philosophies.

Jed Kelley.^[4]

Guest appearances in the first series include Anthony Head (left) and Hugh Laurie.

The first series also sees a number of recurring characters and guest appearances.

In episode five, Tim Pigott-Smith plays Hampton Wilder, a character who was based on Richard Nixon and Jeffrey Archer. In the same episode, Naoko Mori appeared as a lover of Danny's; Mori previously appeared in Psychos, another series produced by Kudos.^[15] In the finale, Irish actor Lorcan Cranitch plays Irish splinter group terrorist Patrick McCann. Cranitch had previously appeared in several other dramas as Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operators.^[4]

Production

Crew

The first series of Spooks was produced by Kudos Film and Television for the BBC. David Wolstencroft was credited as the series creator, Simon Crawford Collins as the producer, and Jane Featherstone as the series producer. The executive producers of the first series were Kudos director Stephen Garrett and Head of Independent Drama Commissioning for the BBC, Gareth Neame. The series includes three screenwriters, and three directors. Wolstencroft wrote the first two episodes and finale of series one. Simon Mirren wrote the third episode. Howard Brenton wrote the last three episodes, co-writing the finale with Wolstencroft.^[4] The producers hired Brenton for his "radical" and "provocative" style. By the time he was hired it had been sixteen years since he last wrote for television.^[16]

The producers from Kudos spent up to three months meeting several potential directors to work on the show, but none shared their views about the show's style until

The pilot originally underwent 30 rewrites and four separate story ideas before the BBC was satisfied with it.[11] Similarly, the second episode went through four rewrites.^[12] After four episodes were written, the September 11 attacks took place, resulting in three thousand deaths in the United States. As a result, the episodes were rewritten to take account of the events to assure the audience that the show is about fighting terrorism. According to Wolstencroft, the attacks "sidewinded" the show, "perversely made it as relevant as can be," and "commuted a great sense of responsibility" on Spooks.^[21]

Throughout the writing, and also the filming stages of the series, the writers were advised by ex-MI5 officers who gave insight into how the characters operate and how their personal lives would be affected by it.^[4] Among the advisors were Nick Day, who worked in counter-terrorism in the Security Services, Viktor Abramkin, a UK-based former KGB officer,^[22] and Mike Baker, an ex-CIA agent.^[4] When including terrorists, the BBC often has the responsibility to portray people with as much balance as possible for both sides.^[21] The first series finale was heavily researched, as the episode was based on real life instances in which terrorists agreed to work with the authorities in Colombia. Meanwhile, a scene in which Tom and Patrick strip naked to ensure they are not bugged came from the producers' sources.^[23] The sources also advised the producers how to tail targets without being spotted.^[20]

The second episode included the death of a main character. The idea was originally going to be used in the series finale. However, the producers did not know how to fill in episode two, so the death was moved up. According to Wolstencroft, the inclusion of Helen's death was to give the audience the message that "the world of Spooks isn't the world where the cavalry always arrive, because in reality these people [MI5] do risk their lives on our behalf and they do get into sticky situations with genuinely nasty people." The producers also wanted main characters to die on occasion rather than on a weekly or bi-weekly basis; otherwise it would show MI5 officers as not doing their jobs properly.^[24] Although Spooks is a serious show, the writers add occasional humour from the characters. According to Wolstencroft, he felt that anybody who works in such an occupation with high responsibilities tends to have humour around, and that those people make jokes even though they have seen "heinous things". This became the basis for creating Jools Siviter.^[13]

The first series of Spooks saw various storylines involving the main characters. Among these were Danny's obsession with money and spending, by hacking into a credit card database to fool it to give him a better credit rating, and the discovery that Tessa is running phantom agents to pocket their money. Those storylines were intended by Brenton and Wolstencroft to show the audience that the MI5 officers are tempted by money.^[12][14] A principle story arc is Tom dealing with the complexities of his relationship with Ellie, who at first does not know he is a spy. This storyline was based on Mike Baker, whose wife did not know he was a spy for the first six months they were together.^[4] As the series progressed, there were more difficulties with the relationship; Brenton wrote Tom's position as if the character did not see the problem. The same episode also introduced the sexual tension between Danny and Zoe.^[15]

Filming

The first series began filming in November 2001,^[11] and continued until March 2002.^[4] Shooting took place almost entirely in London, with many rural scenes filmed around South East England.^[4] Each episode took approximately 12^[25] to 14 days to shoot, although they do not follow on the order of the script; the production crew would film all scenes set at a certain location first, and then move on to the rest.^[12] Between 40 and 50 cuts were made in the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode to quickly introduce the main characters. Filming was usually done with long lens cameras, which proved difficult for the crew as many filming location were short on space.^[11] The scenes where Tom reveals he is a spy to Ellie in "Traitor's Gate" were filmed using hand-held cameras, the first time they were used in the series.^[23] By the time the crew filmed the series finale, hand-held cameras were mostly used. The cameras allowed for more intimate filming as opposed to shoulder-operated cameras. The downside to the hand-held cameras was that they can only shoot four minutes worth of footage from each film stock. In addition, the operators at first hated using the cameras.^[23]

The episodes of the first series were not filmed in the order they were broadcast; "Traitor's Gate" was the third episode to be filmed, while "One Last Dance" was the fourth.^[14][20] While filming "One Last Dance" and "The Rose Bed Memoirs", Macfadyen had a bloodshot left eye. To cover it, sometimes Macfadyen had to hide the left side of his face from the camera. At other times, the actor wore sunglasses.^[15][20] The series made use of real firearms that were decommissioned from service. Certain cast members, including Oyelowo, handled firearms at some point in the series. To maintain gun safety, two weapons experts were on hand to train the actors during rehearsal.^[20]

The producers chose the exterior and some interior of Freemasons' Hall in Holborn as the stand-in for Thames House, the real-life headquarters of MI5, as they felt both buildings shared a similar architecture. However the Grid set, the offices of the protagonists, was filmed in a closed medical school in Kensington.^[11] Sometime after filming concluded for the first series, the building was demolished.^[23] Several other locales around London were used as filming locations. The scenes leading up to Mary's apprehension in "Thou Shalt Not Kill" were filmed at Borough Market in Southwark. The same episode made use of Covent Garden.^[11] "One Last Dance" had scenes filmed in Roehampton and New Zealand House. In the latter's case, the actors were filmed on the top floors, where the wind forced the actors to raise their voices so the sound unit could hear them.^[20] Scenes were filmed in Hampstead Heath in "Traitor's Gate", while one scene was filmed in Trafalgar Square and at London Bridge for "The Rose Bed Memoirs". The last two episodes held several scenes filmed at a high-end house in Highgate owned by a silk merchant, in particular the opera house and bar Jools frequents,^[15] and the DG's (Director General of MI5) office.^[23] Rural scenes were filmed across the South East of England, including in areas in Surrey,^[11][14] and outside Maidstone in Kent.^[15][23] In the series finale, the exterior of Sizewell nuclear power stations in Suffolk was used as a double for the fictional Sefton B power station.^[23]

Post-production

Each episode took approximately two months to edit, and editing usually began as the episodes were still being shot. The editors would work on two episodes simultaneously.

Before broadcasting began, the BBC considered airing the show on a Saturday night timeslot as its research found that any potential viewers were less likely to watch television on Saturdays than most other nights of the week; the BBC hoped that Spooks would boost its timeslot.

Within the fortnight of the show's launch, MI5 noted a surge in a number of applications to the organisation as a result of the series. Out of the 10,000-plus applications per week to MI5's website, more than 2,500 people applied following the end of a Spooks episode, while before the episodes broadcast, only a handful of new applications were entered. MI5 welcomed the show's impact on the public, despite the officers' views that Spooks was "unrealistic and far-fetched", and could give viewers a false impression of how the organisation operates.[41]

Critical reception

The first series received generally favourable reviews. Joe Joseph of The Times stated that it "bears a closer resemblance [to] 24," which "shaded the pleasure of this opening episode", but felt that by the end of the episode, Spooks had "established a voice of its own." Gerard O'Donovan of The Telegraph thought that the series "proved thoroughly entertaining", and praised Wolstencroft's writing, which O'Donovan felt was "confident enough to be playful with its subject – especially regarding Britain's poor-relation relationship with America." Alison Graham of the Radio Times called the first series "a tremendous pieces of hokum, which is only slightly po-faced (but in a knowing kind of way) and which manages to stay just on the right side of self-parody." Thomas Sudcliff of The Independent felt it was a "different kind of spy drama" with "a literal description, derived from the sort of rueful story you could imagine being told at an MI5 staff social", and "a lot of bullshit too, naturally. This is one of those dramas where colleagues never make small talk but instead launch straight into an urgent purposive shorthand."^[43]

Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian stated the series is "one of those shiny and insubstantial series," adding that "all that leaping out of bed at dawn on the pretext that you have to go and sell a house tends to wear thin." Banks-Smith also called the story "slightly unexpected" and stated, "Spooks appears to plume itself on its authenticity, and there are moments, well one moment, so stupid it has to be true."^[42] Fellow Guardian reviewer Gareth McLean stated that Spooks is "so good it makes you want to be a spy."^[44] Dennis Landmann of MovieFreak rated the series eight out of ten, calling it "thrilling, dramatic, and fast", while "much more concise" than many American series. Landmann added; "Each story is complex and convincing, plus the scripts are very well written. A lot goes on in each episode, and it's detrimental for a show like this to keep the action and tension going as fast as possible." The reviewer also noted that having only six episodes worked as an advantage over American television, stating "while this seems incredibly short, the idea is actually very good. This ensures that each episode is strong in content and execution. American shows tend to run for 20–25 episodes a season, and while developments occur, there are always the filler episodes. With [Spooks] there is nothing like it, no filler material at all. In fact, the first season sees a lot of development."^[45]

Matthew Millheiser of DVD Talk agreed. Of the series, Millheiser called it a "great show," with "plotlines that are fast-paced and gripping throughout", adding, "It lacks the slick, candy-coated escapism and romanticism of Alias, or the white-knuckled, thrill-a-minute intensity of 24. [Spooks] is its own beast altogether: a smart, thrilling series that pulls no punches and maintains a consistent level of quality and intelligence throughout its running time."^[32] Bryan Byun of DVD Verdict had an issue with the storylines, stating, "At times it takes the entire length of an episode to figure out precisely what's going on. While that frenetic pace makes for challenging viewing, it might prevent the show from reaching a broader audience." However, Byun thought the first series was a "solid, gripping entertainment that pulls few punches. While it's a little talkier and more reliant on suspense and mystery than trigger-happy American action shows, [Spooks] should please any fan of cloak-and-dagger antics."^[46] Michael Mackenzie of The Digital Fix rated the series eight out of ten, stating that although Spooks "may not be perfect", "it is an imaginative and intriguing series."^[47]

Helen Flynn controversy

The first series attracted controversy for its second episode, which saw the demise of a main character after her hand and head were forced into a deep fryer.

References