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Friday, November 6, 2009

Some thoughts on Spooks episode 8.1

4:46 PM / Television / 4 Comments

* Warning! * This post contains major spoilers for the episode.

So, Ruth is back. And poor old Malcolm crept out the back door after eight years on our screens. Thankfully, he was still breathing when he departed, breaking with a tradition that has, for the last three seasons, seen a regular character killed off in Episode 1.

Season 7 ended with one of the classic cliffhangers that have been Spooks' trademark ever since it first began in 2002, this time with section chief Harry Pearce - of course, that's Sir Harry now - being bundled, bound and gagged, into the back of a helicopter by a turncoat Russian agent. I've always contended that Harry is the cornerstone of Spooks, now the only character to have been there right from the beginning and, as someone else described him, "the still point of the turning world". Lose Harry and, in my opinion, you lose Spooks. Of course, ever since Lisa Faulkner made acquaintances with a deep fat fryer in the second episode of Season 1, it has been made abundantly clear that no-one in this show is safe, and of the regular characters who have departed during the show's eight-year history, more than half have done so in a pine box. By being so cavalier with regard to killing off their characters, the writers have hammered home, right from the start, that regardless of a character's status or popularity, they will, if need be, be dispatched ruthlessly. As a result, after surviving countless previous brushes with death, I genuinely believed that my favourite character's time was up...

But it was not to be. To my great delight, the first episode not only featured the dramatic rescue of Harry, in typically over the top Spooks fashion, but also the return of my second favourite character, awkward and scatterbrained data analyst Ruth Evershed. And, in spite of some flaws (the lovely Miranda Raison was criminally underused once again, the accent of the new CIA liaison was atrocious, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that the writer, Ben Richards, rather cheekily used a very similar speech to one he wrote for an almost identical situation in the final episode of Season 3, albeit with a different outcome) the episode was excellent. It was real edge of your seat, knuckle-biting stuff, and the moment where Harry and Ruth finally came face to face (both tied to chairs and under threat of death, naturally) for the first time since Season 5 was so loaded with emotion that even my blackened, shrivelled heart was suitably moved. And, needless to say, the whole thing turned out to be a fine excuse for some truly brilliant acting courtesy of Peter Firth and Nicola Walker, although perhaps the most understated and heartfelt moment was reserved for Hugh Simon as the much-loved Malcolm, who after seven seasons and one episode in one of the least glamorous but most vital roles on the show, got a fittingly low-key send-off.

Bringing back any character after a lengthy period of absence, of course, is always going to open a massive can of worms. The story of unrequited love between Harry and Ruth was allowed to develop over three and a half seasons as a backdrop to the main storylines, and the impression I get is that it was initially unintentional on the part of the writers, but (and fair play to them) when they saw the audience reaction they decided to run with it. Until Ruth's very last episode (5.5), it was never the main focus of the show. It was simply something that was hinted at in little nods or lingering glances, and as a result never distracted from the job in hand. Generally speaking, if romance is to be done in a TV show, this is how I like it to be handled: subtle and under the radar as opposed to distracting and in-your-face.

That said, I'm slightly concerned that, if the writers aren't very careful, the whole thing could end up bogging down the show and getting in the way of the espionage that is supposed to be its focus. The rule of thumb tends to be that, the longer a show runs for, the soapier it gets due to the increasingly convoluted histories the characters end up carrying with them. Spooks tends not to go in for what I would term soap opera angst... although, that said, the longer the Adam Carter character remained on the show, the more angst-riddled it became, due to the sheer amount of emotional baggage he ended up lugging around. In its fifth and sixth seasons, it started to become embroiled in a mire of personal strife, as Adam's character dossier ended up being clogged with innumerable nervous breakdowns and near-death experiences, not to mention a dead wife, to the extent that his emotional troubles began to overshadow the rest of the drama. In the end, cutting him loose at the start of Season 8 turned out to be the best thing for the series in the long run, particularly as it allowed Lucas North, a new character with a darker, less domestically-oriented back-story to be brought in to replace him.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, delighted though I am by the reunion of Ruth and Harry, I'm tempering my joy with an awareness of what could potentially go wrong with such a storyline. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon is famous for giving audiences what they he feels they need rather than what they want, and while on occasions this has backfired something rotten (I dispute the notion that we "needed" Season 6 of Buffy), there's something to be said for avoiding simply writing whatever you think will please your viewers. The return of Ruth was at least in part the result of a campaign spearheaded by fans, who inundated production company Kudos with letters and postcards, and my hope is that the powers that be will resist the urge to pander to those who would like Season 8 to be nothing more than a Harry/Ruth soap opera. Actually, I suspect that even the most ardent fans of this pairing realise the need for restraint, but I just hope the writers remember to exercise it as they move forth into what I'm hoping will be another gripping and thoroughly compelling season.

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