New Spooks tonight....

There not showing the next episode on BBC 3 anymore then? I was hoping they would, gets you into it quicker.

Whats all this about budget cuts? Its made by Kudos for the Beeb, so whats happning? Beeb not paying as much as is needed to give us the quality episodes?

I was hoping for 12 episodes, this series is just 8, not enough.
 
Its been 8 episodes for the last few seasons. It was only ever 10 maximum.

UK tv neeRAB to realise that 8 episodes is not long enough for some series. USA have it right 24 episodes!
 
I don't have any figures to prove it but you can always tell budgets have been squeezed when scenes which would be expensive to film happen off screen - such as the pirates boarding, the life raft at sea or any real Navy vessels. Even the EMP pulse was a "cheap" way of solving the problem as you only need a few people looking at their mobile phones and wondering why they are dead.

However, as long as the writing and acting as still good then it needn't be a huge problem. I just expect to see fewer explosions, helicopters and car chases this series.



Eight is too few. 24 is too many. 12-13, which is the length of season that HBO typically use is about right.
 
Why didn't they spot it when it was around 30 miles off the coast? Would have been easy to spot on radar at that distance especially if you are looking for something which has it's own gps turned off but appears on your screen.

If Sentry is so important, why did no-one apparently notice it was down earlier in the day not link it to the day's events?

What else was damaged by the EMP triggger? Was there chaos in London when no traffic lights or computers worked? Did all cars cease to function?
 
No that was ros i think. She got inadvertantly caught up in one of the episodes where her husband and kid i think got killed.

I'm having trouble getting into this one. Even though I'm on a computer at the same time, I don't think this one is quite as good.
 
Only the Russians ever had active radar satellites (RORSATS). The West used ELINT satellites that could detect electromagnetic emissions (radio etc) - which could be neutralised by following EMCON proceedures (radio silence basically). However, that might still pick up jamming (which tenRAB to work by blocking frequencies with electromagnetic noise). 99% of targets for Photo Reconnaissance satellites are land-based therefore their orbits would designed to maximise their time over target areas, not empty oceans.

But all of this technology is cold war stuff, launched in the 1970s/80s. The threat is has receded no telling how much of the capability has been retained.

The alternatives are then ship based radar (submarines preferably) or maritime patrol aircraft. The former takes time to get on scene if it isn't in place to start with, while right now we have no MPA capability due to the cuts by the last government - they withdrew the Nimrod MRA2 earlier and delayed its replacement by a year at the same time.

Back to Spooks, while it's good to have a new series, suspending belief is becoming ever more difficult. It's a shame when they can get the current affairs aspects spot on but completely ruin it with preposterous technology and mistakes (at various points the ship was far out in the Atlantic (on a Morocco-UK trip presumably?), a 20-odd miles off Plymouth the next minute, still in the middle of the Atlantic on the ship's navigation system but deep in the Bay of Biscay on MI5's tracker!).
 
So you were expecting what exactly? Tornado or Eurofighters to swoop down and blow them out of the Thames outside The Palace of Westminster? :D

That kind of thing is best not shown as the CGI will never be good enough.
 
So where did the bad guys go? 2 boats - the bomb boats - were launched but they were remote controlled. So unless the bad guys jumped off and drowned they are still on the ship
 
I'm hoping it's the case that the budget is being saved for later episodes. I thought this was a great episode, and we didn't need to see the SMERSH hover-ship descending from low orbit and dropping the pirates onto the ship - it worked well enough in itself.

I'm guessing that in the finale, nuclear bombs will go off around the world destroying everything, and Lucas & co have get to the Large Hadron Collider and put it into reverse to put everything back to normal, although don't hold me to that.
 
Great to have Spooks back, it's always a bit crazy but never fails to be entertaining for me. Love all the Harry/Ruth stuff and am liking the look of the newbies. I wasn't too bothered about them either way but the way Sophia Myles' character just walked right in and took that lighter off the girl made me instantly love her.:D No hanging around there!
 
Presumably, the pirates' ship was moored alongside the container ship while they were on board - the submersibles being sent on their way packed with explosives.

Anyway, good stuff from Spooks as expected :)
 
How did the Columbians know that Beth would be on the lift or that she worked for MI5? How did they tie on their attempt on her with the attempt on Westhouse? And why did no-one else on the team comment?
How did the Nigerians know where to find Chapman?
What happened with the vetting of Beth?
 
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