Spy is one of those "coming to BBC2 soon" series that gets premiered on BBC3 first. I still really don't see what's in it for anyone doing it that way. It's not really exclusive to the digital channels, but by the time the programme's reached BBC2 it's not going to be hot enough to capture much coverage in the press - which must surely mean that not as many people see it as might.
Anyway, I kind of stumbled across Spy last weekend in some kind of BBC3 catch-up (BBC3 is so taken with DOGS at the moment, that it probably said "catch-up" on screen. When a new episode aired on Sunday night it said "Sunday Best" which I took to mean "catch-up" except obviously it wasn't. I digress). It's basically trying to do an SAS: Are You Tough Enough -type thing with volunteers in a Spooks environs. Cue editing done by people who've watched way too much Spooks. Lots of silly graphics, way too much to-camera pieces about how the recruits are feeling, and the like.
I did stick with the programme and I guess I quite liked it, but I felt that we really weren't being told the whole story. In one episode contestants had to get into a stranger's flat, go onto the balcony and be seen drinking a glass of water. When a really feeble cover-story doesn't work, he's arrested by the police when the resident reports him as hanging around. Well that must be nice - being scared out of your wits by a possible prowler just for entertainment purposes. And how does that square with wasting police time? Then in another episode contestants had to get into various work premises and take secret photos of a document therein. We were told that none of the staff knew they were coming. I think we should have been told that the senior manager/chief exec of each business must have been told because otherwise it was straightforward illegal, and we wouldn't have seen various hidden camera footage that we did see.
The "tutors" for the series are all, we're told, former operatives of British or US secret services. Exactly what they did we don't know, because, a specious caption comes up to tell us that their "Details" are "classified". Since this is the case for all three, there's no point in having the caption is there?
There's also a slightly dubious attempt to make it more of a "reality" gameshow by trying to hint at possible relationships that might develop between competitors and their own histories coming into play )a closet homosexual, a father missing his children, etc).
I don't mind all this, but I really think that the makers of these shows should play by the rules and let us know what's what. Is a cameraman living with them in each flat? What do the neighbours make of their "safehouses" if that's the case? Particularly with late night visits from interrorgators and the like.
And please - slightly less arty shots of the disused Strand tube station that's their headquarters. And those hip medium and long shots of competitors and tutors looking moody.
I think I prefer to await Spooks return this autumn.
Two biggish new series for the main terrestrial channels started this week. I say biggish because lets face it, no-one really starts major series in the summer.
55 Degrees North is set in Newcastle and features a black night-detective who seems to be having a hard time from just about everyone except his family. Actually, I could have done with a little less of the family - I just wanted the main story to crack on. There seems to be quite a degree of murkiness in this Newcastle police force, which brings to mind a favourite series of mine, Between the Lines. In fact everyone is behaving improperly to one extent or another except our protagonist. We'll just have see how it develops.
Making Waves has been kicking around on ITV's shelves for a while it seems. I'm not quite sure why, as it's got to be better than that recent Ross Kemp nonsense, Line in the Sand (which itself was gathering dust at ITV network centre). This must have cost a few quid, and was obviously pitched as Soldier Soldier at sea. I never really watched Soldier Soldier, but I guess that all the soap elements are there alongside the action. Ah, the action. The big problem with this series is going to be giving HMS Sussex something meaningful to do. In this episode we had the usual new crew member to help introduce us - is there any other way to start a series? The action involved rescuing a couple of missing crewman who were stranded on board a rusty freighter with some Albanian refugees. No chance of the ship ending up in the Gulf then? I quite enjoyed it all, although subplots involving the engineer's assistant who was the father of a child with his bosses daughter were just a bit too much for me. The series has been filmed aboard a real Navy ship with full assistance, so I suspect that the scripts will have all been cleared in advance. It may have been the confines of the shooting environment, but I was disappointed with the quality of pictures which were very obviously originated on video cameras. It looked as though the technology used was similar to that used in Rockface and as a result there were too many "jaggies" along the straight lines (ship and sea etc) that made the thing look like it was a badly compressed mpeg. You can't beat film - not yet anyway (George Lucas take note). The special effects were a bit disappointing too. The sequence at the start involving a ship-to-ship transfer that went tragically wrong, looked to my eyes like a mirror image of one ship. And a sequence where the rusty trawler was nearly rammed by a freighter in a shipping lane was shot in very close up with no wide angle detailing what was supposedly going on (too expensive and dangerous for an ITV drama one suspects). Sadly, the resulting footage looked all too much like a camera panning along the side of a boat that was safely moored in dock, but cropped a bit.
Will I give either series another try? Probably.
Two biggish new series for the main terrestrial channels started this week. I say biggish because lets face it, no-one really starts major series in the summer.
55 Degrees North is set in Newcastle and features a black night-detective who seems to be having a hard time from just about everyone except his family. Actually, I could have done with a little less of the family - I just wanted the main story to crack on. There seems to be quite a degree of murkiness in this Newcastle police force, which brings to mind a favourite series of mine, Between the Lines. In fact everyone is behaving improperly to one extent or another except our protagonist. We'll just have see how it develops.
Making Waves has been kicking around on ITV's shelves for a while it seems. I'm not quite sure why, as it's got to be better than that recent Ross Kemp nonsense, Line in the Sand (which itself was gathering dust at ITV network centre). This must have cost a few quid, and was obviously pitched as Soldier Soldier at sea. I never really watched Soldier Soldier, but I guess that all the soap elements are there alongside the action. Ah, the action. The big problem with this series is going to be giving HMS Sussex something meaningful to do. In this episode we had the usual new crew member to help introduce us - is there any other way to start a series? The action involved rescuing a couple of missing crewman who were stranded on board a rusty freighter with some Albanian refugees. No chance of the ship ending up in the Gulf then? I quite enjoyed it all, although subplots involving the engineer's assistant who was the father of a child with his bosses daughter were just a bit too much for me. The series has been filmed aboard a real Navy ship with full assistance, so I suspect that the scripts will have all been cleared in advance. It may have been the confines of the shooting environment, but I was disappointed with the quality of pictures which were very obviously originated on video cameras. It looked as though the technology used was similar to that used in Rockface and as a result there were too many "jaggies" along the straight lines (ship and sea etc) that made the thing look like it was a badly compressed mpeg. You can't beat film - not yet anyway (George Lucas take note). The special effects were a bit disappointing too. The sequence at the start involving a ship-to-ship transfer that went tragically wrong, looked to my eyes like a mirror image of one ship. And a sequence where the rusty trawler was nearly rammed by a freighter in a shipping lane was shot in very close up with no wide angle detailing what was supposedly going on (too expensive and dangerous for an ITV drama one suspects). Sadly, the resulting footage looked all too much like a camera panning along the side of a boat that was safely moored in dock, but cropped a bit.
Will I give either series another try? Probably.