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‘Spooks’ Reviews and Ratings & Episode 4

After the new series of ‘Spooks‘ premiered last Monday many reviews could be found. They’re quite favourable and also Sophia’s addition to the cast was received mostly positively:

Hermione Norris’s refreshingly stern Ros Myers has been replaced by the busty, smouldering Sophia Myles as Beth Bailey – a former independent contractor hankering for a job at MI5. Like North, her cocky, self-assured demeanour screamed “mole” and we were merrily invited to distrust her from the start.

It’s all fairly daft (well, as far as we know – MI5 may actually be dealing with these kinds of preposterous events every day), but happily Spooks remains as tight, gripping and exceptionally watchable as it was in series one.
The Telegraph

It’s the marriage of slick, if slightly implausible, action and the suggestion of a world forever on the brink of going to hell that gives Spooks its edge.
Metro (they also strangely had a problem with Beth’s cleavage)

The highlight of the night – and any other night, come to think of it – was the start of the ninth series of Spooks (BBC1) which is still as compellingly watchable and implausible as ever. I say implausible, but then you never really know.
Guardian

The new ones especially worked tremendously well. Replacing Ros would be an impossible feat, but I really like Sophia Myles’ Beth Bailey; she’s sparky, clever, and fun, and she has bucketloads of chemistry with Lucas.
Unpopcult

There’s also a funny rather Beth-centric review at The Arts Desk and another one at The Independent and The Guardian’s Vicky Frost is back with her witty Spooks blog.

The episode attracted 5.58 million viewers which was less than other ‘Spooks‘ series premieres in the past pulled in – but with an audience share of 23.2% it was still the most watched programme of the evening (source: Digital Spy).

The official ‘Spooks’ Website was updated for the current series and Sophia’s charcter has her own profile page here: Beth Bailey. Here’s a not so spoilery look out for next week’s episode by Ian Wylie: Spooks – The One With the Lift. And the new description for episode 4 which will air on October 11, 2010, 9pm is now also available at the BBC Press Office (SPOILERS).

7 Comments on “‘Spooks’ Reviews and Ratings & Episode 4”

  1. oh dear ,roz should not have gone ,new series seems to stumble around without any substance , Harry as always great acting ,but ..what have you done writers .sorry been an ardent fan ,but now no longer sure

  2. Oh dear this latest episode has left me cold! Why? I have watched it again and discovered that it was the continual build-up of mistakes and poor writing that widened the credibility gap too far (for me personally). To illustrate:
    Aibek’s limp varied at every shot
    Home Secretary unaccountably terse and rude to Harry when he would be building their relationship
    Dozey daughter letting Aibek in when she had already been warned…
    Aibek staying still to be shot in the head when the Viktor was looking away and talking to Lucas
    Tariq locating Aibek on CCTV like, immediately!
    Beth and Dimitri we gr8 but their characters were marginalised in this episode and not developed – especially Dimitri.
    Finally dozey Maya who doesn’t ask the important questions, doesn’t want to get answers and talks in absolutes all the time. (Can any of us reasonably promise ‘always’ or ‘never’ to our loved ones?) At the end poor Lucas is going to get a sad let down when she sees his grotesque prison tattoos and passion evaporates into ‘Yuk’!
    Actually the script writers are at fault here – the actors did their best! I do hope they revert to the normal excellent standard next week.

  3. Disappointing episode
    When Lucas, Dmitri and Beth enter the University to look for the Prof and Aibek, the building would have been ‘locked down’ so Aibeck couldn’t get out. They should have had back-up for that.

    His daughter wouldn’t have let a complete stranger in after being warned by her father. That was really silly…

    Beth would not have left the distraught daughter in the bathroom in the hands of a total stranger, especially a Russian that they didn’t trust.

    When the Russian was shooting at Aibeck on the roof, it took Lucas and Beth far too long to get there.

    The bits with Lucas and the guy who calls him ‘John’, and with the woman at the end seem pointless. The scene with the woman at the end didn’t tell us anything much, a bit of a waste of time. I hope they begin to make more sense of Lucas hidden past soon or it’s going to become annoying.

    Finally the speed with which Tariq fround Aibek through the CCTV system was ridiculously quick, even for a Spooks episode!

    All in all not one of their better episodes…

  4. One more point;
    They lost Roz, great shame… They have Ruth who is good, but gentle. They need another female more like Roz to balance out. Beth character ‘smolders’ too much. Personally I feel there is too much ‘smoldering’ going on in this series so far. Less smoldering and tighter more logical story lines please… And please replace Beth with someone more like Roz.

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