This was one of my favorite action series back when it first aired, but it got much less compelling around series 8 and I quit watching at some point round there. I’ve now re-watched the entire series as well as the movie that followed it Spooks: The Greater Good. Here are some thoughts!

– I still LOVE the opening credits theme music!
– the first series aired in 2002, and all the computer and technical stuff is so primitive! LOL
– I much preferred the Grid in the first half of the series: it felt unique and distinctive. As the series progressed, somewhere after series 5 maybe, the Grid got very boring and it looks like a million other offices now.
– This was the first role I saw Rupert Penry-Jones in, and after this he was in The Strain where I was very happy with his performance as well.
– This was the second role I saw Matthew Macfadyen in, and had at first terrible trouble seeing him as a spy/action man. But I really became to like his character as the series went on, even though most of his personal storylines were bad.
– All in all, I think writing for characters was better in the early series. They all felt more like real people, each with their motives, strengths and weaknesses, desires and needs. Later on, the characters, with the exception of Sir Harry Pearce, became more one note and not as real feeling to me.
– I also liked that in the early series, the characters almost never had guns on them. Although often that felt unbelievable, though, but I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m used to all fictional spies/action heroes/law enforcers being armed to the teeth at all times. On the other hand, they never seemed to wear bulletproof vests even when knowingly going into a situation that likely would end in gunfire.
– I also preferred the styling of the actresses in the early series – just normal clothing and hair for office work, no deep cleavage or fuck-me heels. They were dressed for the character and her job, while the later series dressed the actresses sexily for viewers.
– My favorite characters are introduced in the early/mid series ones: Adam Carter, Tom Quin, Zoe, Danny, Malcolm, Jo and Harry Pearce. Richard Armitage as Lucas North was also great, but I didn’t like his final storyline at all in series 9.
– I think series 1-4 and 7 are the best, while series 6 and 10 are so bad I had trouble getting through them, particularly series 10. I liked it best when the stories were more or less episodic, instead of having series arcs. And I liked when the opponents were more varied in the early seasons than just Islamist terrorists.
– Ros Myers. I didn’t like Ros at all the first time around, because I don’t much like Hermione Norris – she’s always comes across as cold and distant in all the roles I’ve ever seen her in. But now re-watching, that works in an excellent way for Ros Myers!
– This time around I liked Ros Myers a lot! She’s cold, distant, controlled and principled. But some of her storylines were weird and didn’t really fit what had been revealed about the character before. When she was first introduced, she was an agent who turned on her own father whom she loved very much – but still she turned on him about the same minute she found out he was part of a cabal of white men attempting coup United Kingdom. She felt guilty as hell betraying her father but she did it without true hesitation because of her values and principles when she realized he was a traitor to the country. Then the very next series, she herself turns traitor to the country at the drop of a hat when approached by another cabal, Yalta, this time wanting in power to ignite the war between West and East the cabal is believes is coming soon anyway. Yalta wants to ignite the war themselves to try and control the outcome and the new world order that will follow in the wake of that war. Yalta says it’s for “the greater good” and Ros swallows it, betraying her country and her co-workers the other spies who rely on her for their own lives and safety of their families. But she somehow gets off scot-free in the end after totally unbelievably spinning the whole thing as being a mole in the Yalta despite never telling anyone anything about the whole thing, and nobody believing her and everyone knowing she’s lying. After a little while as an operative in Russia as an outcast or something, she returns back to UK and becomes the section chief of MI-5 Section D.
– Ros and Adam’s romantic relationship was so weird. Neither would admit to being in a relationship, being serious about it. But Ros is weirdly jealous and possessive as Adam has to woo and sleep with an asset, the wife of a notable Iranian diplomat/spy in order to get information on an active threat plot. And Adam had just lost his beloved wife, and apparently fell in love with Ros and also kind of in love with the asset a few weeks/months after his wife’s murder when he still must’ve been actively grieving her.
– I felt really bad for Adam and his wife’s son. Both Adam and his wife (whose name I can’t seem to remember!) are spies, actively putting their lives in danger about every other day. I kept wondering why they had had a child when that child seemed to not ever be on their list of priorities unless there was a direct threat to the child’s life. The little boy had to do with absent parents all his short life, then his mother was murdered and a little later, also his father. And it was his father’s boss who came to tell him that his father had also died. I felt so bad for the son when the boss came to the park, the son looked quietly at the boss and knew. The son couldn’t have been more than 10 at the time. I keep wondering how he fared going forward.
– I feel like somewhere around season 8 in particular, the character writing got much less for most characters – only Lucas North and Harry Pearce were still written for as people, and in season 10, everyone else was bodies standing around except for Harry Pearce.
– if you haven’t seen this show, fair warning: don’t expect characters to survive! I think of all the main characters the series had over 10 series, only 3 survived to the end (including the movie Spooks: The Greater Good). And only one of them stayed on in the series all the way through, while the other 2 briefly guest-starred or did a cameo many series later.
– the movie Spooks: The Greater Good, which was made 4-5 years after the end of the series, was entertaining. Nothing spectacular or original, but I liked it much better than series 8-10.