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hestia8So recently London Spy has been on BBC 2, featuring Ben Whishaw being his usual excellent and slightly melancholy self. I watched all of it (I know a lot of people gave up partway through, which totally makes sense, frankly), and I have spoilery thoughts:
The good:
The acting was great from everyone, and the atmosphere and the visuals were really nice. It's difficult to pick out any one element but the series felt like it all came from the same place, if that makes sense.
The not so good:
The first thing that I didn't really like is that the central mystery is based on a real-life case from 2010 and I really do not think Tom Rob Smith changed enough of the details, considering how recent the case was (info is here, though obvious warnings for an upsetting situation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams and here www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/12/london-spy-real-life-murder-gareth-williams, although I disagree with the conclusion of that article). At the beginning of the series I thought it would be alright if the subject was dealt with sensitively, but by the end I really was uncomfortable with how blatantly the details of someone's actual death had been played with for what became a deeply unconvincing drama.
Also I've just seen some photos of Gareth Williams and Edward Holcroft does not look unlike him, which I find a bit creepy actually. FFS, Tom Rob Smith, why wouldn't you change the details up a bit? Ugh.
There were a bunch of mysterious people and plotlines that were introduced and quickly dropped (Clarke Peters showing up for all of five minutes, what the fuck was that??? The HIV thing that came out of nowhere and really did not get enough attention for how serious it would have been for Danny???) and the show never seemed to know what to do with Scottie - for all the screentime he got, his motivations were never really clear one way or the other. There was also the standard genre problem (actually, you know what, let's just call it an excuse) of spying being a man's game so there were barely any women to be seen, and only one who really got a significant amount of plot coming her way. And yes, I realise the central relationships were between gay men and that's an under-represented group as well, but it felt like the writer didn't know how to write women so mostly just left them out.
Otherwise, it was a strong initial idea (which wasn't actually the writer's own idea, see above) that didn't have an ending, which meant that the longer the series progressed, the sillier things got. I was deeply unconvinced by the plot's resolution. Everything from the adoption tale onwards was just ridiculous, culminating in Alex's horrible death. Just ridiculous. Upsetting as it was (poor old Alex never had a chance at anything, did he?), I spent the whole time going OH AS IF at the screen, and then - then! - at the last minute the fucking architect of his life and then death has a change of fucking heart and wants to help Danny go after the other spies?????? WHAT. How the fuck was anyone expected to believe this? Did it make any sense for the characters? In what universe would Danny be able to trust such a complete and sudden change of heart from this woman?
I wasn't entirely surprised it turned out the mother was behind it - in the last couple of years especially of watching spy stuff I’ve found that presuming whatever outcome is the most miserable is the answer is basically always right (I mean, Alex had a drunk, drug-addicted mother, then was taken in by a cold woman who wanted to mould him to fulfil her ambitions, he then created something amazing and his country and his mother killed him for it). I haven't been wrong so far /bitter laughter.
(the above paragraph is also why I was always sure it was Alex in the trunk, although a lot of people on the Guardian blog etc were wondering if he was somehow not dead, but it being Alex would make Danny very very sad, so it was him and I was right, ha ha ha *sob*)
Just realised I haven't mentioned the MacGuffin: oh GOD that was horribly unconvincing. I wish it had stayed a mystery or just technobabble because a) I didn't believe in it and b) I definitely didn't believe that it would do anything like what they said it would (for reference, please see this excellent Last Week Tonight segment on Edward Snowden: www.youtube.com/watch)
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delgaserasca
The good:
The acting was great from everyone, and the atmosphere and the visuals were really nice. It's difficult to pick out any one element but the series felt like it all came from the same place, if that makes sense.
The not so good:
The first thing that I didn't really like is that the central mystery is based on a real-life case from 2010 and I really do not think Tom Rob Smith changed enough of the details, considering how recent the case was (info is here, though obvious warnings for an upsetting situation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams and here www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/12/london-spy-real-life-murder-gareth-williams, although I disagree with the conclusion of that article). At the beginning of the series I thought it would be alright if the subject was dealt with sensitively, but by the end I really was uncomfortable with how blatantly the details of someone's actual death had been played with for what became a deeply unconvincing drama.
Also I've just seen some photos of Gareth Williams and Edward Holcroft does not look unlike him, which I find a bit creepy actually. FFS, Tom Rob Smith, why wouldn't you change the details up a bit? Ugh.
There were a bunch of mysterious people and plotlines that were introduced and quickly dropped (Clarke Peters showing up for all of five minutes, what the fuck was that??? The HIV thing that came out of nowhere and really did not get enough attention for how serious it would have been for Danny???) and the show never seemed to know what to do with Scottie - for all the screentime he got, his motivations were never really clear one way or the other. There was also the standard genre problem (actually, you know what, let's just call it an excuse) of spying being a man's game so there were barely any women to be seen, and only one who really got a significant amount of plot coming her way. And yes, I realise the central relationships were between gay men and that's an under-represented group as well, but it felt like the writer didn't know how to write women so mostly just left them out.
Otherwise, it was a strong initial idea (which wasn't actually the writer's own idea, see above) that didn't have an ending, which meant that the longer the series progressed, the sillier things got. I was deeply unconvinced by the plot's resolution. Everything from the adoption tale onwards was just ridiculous, culminating in Alex's horrible death. Just ridiculous. Upsetting as it was (poor old Alex never had a chance at anything, did he?), I spent the whole time going OH AS IF at the screen, and then - then! - at the last minute the fucking architect of his life and then death has a change of fucking heart and wants to help Danny go after the other spies?????? WHAT. How the fuck was anyone expected to believe this? Did it make any sense for the characters? In what universe would Danny be able to trust such a complete and sudden change of heart from this woman?
I wasn't entirely surprised it turned out the mother was behind it - in the last couple of years especially of watching spy stuff I’ve found that presuming whatever outcome is the most miserable is the answer is basically always right (I mean, Alex had a drunk, drug-addicted mother, then was taken in by a cold woman who wanted to mould him to fulfil her ambitions, he then created something amazing and his country and his mother killed him for it). I haven't been wrong so far /bitter laughter.
(the above paragraph is also why I was always sure it was Alex in the trunk, although a lot of people on the Guardian blog etc were wondering if he was somehow not dead, but it being Alex would make Danny very very sad, so it was him and I was right, ha ha ha *sob*)
Just realised I haven't mentioned the MacGuffin: oh GOD that was horribly unconvincing. I wish it had stayed a mystery or just technobabble because a) I didn't believe in it and b) I definitely didn't believe that it would do anything like what they said it would (for reference, please see this excellent Last Week Tonight segment on Edward Snowden: www.youtube.com/watch)
I was talking to
delgaserasca
