MI-5 drama `Spooks` to premiere on US television tonight

"MI-5"
Channel: A&E
Time: 10pm to 11pm
Date: Tuesday 22nd July 2003 (continues weekly)

Click here for the official A&E "MI-5" website.

BBC drama "Spooks" is finally being shown the USA, although it has been rebadged "MI-5".

But by any name, this re-edited version, which has been altered for American television, is one very tense and jarring thriller that`s far smarter than most audiences on these shores are accustomed to.

Highly controversial when it first aired in the United Kingdom (series two is now being shown in the UK and has become the most complained about television program ever), the show blurs the lines of fact and fiction in beguiling ways, using actual news as something of a launching pad for a highly compelling, adrenaline-charged action drama of great complexity.

At the core of the first series of "MI-5" is a crackerjack team of fictional spies who populate England`s national security intelligence agency - rather like our CIA. They are charged with protecting their fellow citizens from the likes of hidden terrorist groups, illegal immigration rings, arms smugglers and drug cartels.

In the opener, they encounter suicide bombers - car bomb-detonating crazies hellbent on a deathly overzealous agenda. In the second episode, a race war erupts that finds a waste management company owner attacking immigrants.

If it all seems a little bit too close to reality for comfort, well, that`s kind of the idea. And in this world, even the characters that the audience grows close to can be killed off without much warning. Furthermore, the villains here are no shrinking violets, but the hard-core, industrial-strength variety - always a plus.

The show stars Matthew Macfadyen as Tom Quinn, a suave senior operative who must hide his true occupation from even those to whom he is closest. He works with a smart but untested undercover agent named Zoe Reynolds (Keeley Hawes), the ambitious Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo), the cool head of operations Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) and danger junkie Tessa Phillips (Jenny Agutter).

What`s immediately clear in "MI-5" is that the audience will be obliged to pay far closer attention and make a significantly greater cerebral investment than many are accustomed to. The plot lines are as multilayered as they are jarring, somewhat like James Bond on steroids.

It isn`t always easy to sort out agents from double agents, right from wrong, good from evil and the real from the imaginary. And that`s what helps make the series such an intriguing thrill ride.

Everything isn`t laid out with crystal clarity on a nice little platter, rather like life itself. The pace is fast and unrelenting, its edgy, unsettling sensibility keeping you consistently off balance.

Just don`t expect easy answers from "MI-5." The show`s most obvious strength is that it refuses ever to let us off the hook.

Thanks to Tux for the alert.

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