i-want-more

Spies like us

I caught parts of an episode of Spooks: Code 9 earlier this week on BBC3.

The regular Spooks series is a guilty pleasure of mine. The pot-boiling plots are mostly ludicrous and stretch credibility to the limit. However, it’s well-executed, well-acted and often funny (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not).

Code 9 is a different animal. It’s set in a dystopian future where London has been destroyed in a terrorist attack. As a result of said attack, the Security Services have moved to Manchester and re-structured. This restructure was for, as far as I can tell, to forbid the inclusion of anyone who isn’t good-looking or over the age of 30. Which is fair enough, in matters of national security, eh.

I didn’t really watch for long enough to a real flavour of the programme. However, the bits I did see were populated with some of the most hilariously clunky dialogue I’ve heard since Rosemary and Thyme (the herb-named gardening-based sleuth series) came off-air. I did have the good fortune to catch this vignette, a mot juste the like of which Flaubert would be screaming from his grave for:

Ballsy, female, black boss (about 29) to young, floppy-haired new field operative team leader (about 19):

‘Listen, I gave you this job because I thought you could do it. Just be confident and get on with it. Here’s a word of warning though: don’t make me look like a dickhead.’

I should say that this is merely an approximation/condensed version of the scene – the one word that was definitely used was dickhead – I was laughing too hard to be able to quote the actual wording with any accuracy. It made me think though: I wonder if the target audience (who I am guessing BBC3 are thinking are good-looking and under 30) was thinking the same as me – that they should have used the c-word and bleeped it out?

posted by deafdisco @ 11:49 am