These types of shows have the advantage that you don’t have to spend half the first episode run explaining the idea, or maybe all the characters, because we’ve seen it or them before. The challenge as ever, is to take the show into new areas that aren’t the preserve of the original, and explore a different aspect. That’s the theory, but I’m not sure how well that was explained to producer Chris Fry who has made the Spooks-lite series, Spooks: Code 9. So what of the show? Does it have the mental agility of Sir Harry Pearce or the unstoppable drive of Adam Carter? Err…no…not so far, but it’s early days. The timeline of the series is that it’s set in 2013, after MI5 is blown to bits and they decide to regionalise it, to make it less easy to be taken out in 2012 by a ‘Code 9’ nuclear attack on London. The Britain of 2013 appears to be a Police state, where the citizens really need protecting from the authorities as much as the ‘bad people’. But having tried to make the viewer swallow that, they then present a succession of cardboard cut-out characters with whom we’re supposed to relate. All the girls are beautiful and feisty, and the men are boyish and naïve. Because Code 9 is for that exact demographic, where women want to be gutsy heroines and men need to get in touch with their sensitive side. Please! Let me list the characters; we’ve an ex-nerd, ex-con, ex-cop, ex-doctor, ex-physiologist and ex-toff. All that’s missing is the reformed alcoholic who no-one trusts, and we’d have the full set here. But amazingly, some of the actors are actually good enough to rise above their cookie-cutter personalities, for which I heartily salute them. There is potential in this show, but I’m suspicious that it’s been fed into the BBC Three grinder, like they’ve seen the other five episodes and it goes downhill from here. I’ve got the second episode lined up on iPlayer, so I’ll report back later in the week if Code 9 is the start of something intriguing or a pale imitation of its espionage origins. o Spooks cameos yet, so I guess that will be held for the final episode, or it’s not in the Code 9 budget.
