Shortened but engaging finale season for this show – thankfully the streamer allowed the conclusion in a short 6-episode season rather than the 3-season cancellation that’s become so commonplace in the content wars. Season 4 introduces Tom Clancy’s equivalent of
Jack Ryan – Season 3
This one was a do-over – we started it back when The Child was born but after about 4 episodes realised that neither of us had the brain power to follow wtf was happening or who all those people were.
The Night Agent
Cute 10-part spy-thriller pushed at me by the Netflix algorithm. It was an engaging enough story, provided you were happy to ignore the UTTERLY RIDICULOUS central plot element once it moved into view. Fun and well-put together, provided you’re not
Spycraft
8 part docu-series about spy techniques through recent history, backed with loads of stock footage and factual explanations/recountings of events. I came away feeling like they repeated themselves a bit, although being one of those shows I’d pop on after
Condor – Season 2
A continuation of the flummoxing first season; maintaining engagement better throughout but ultimately had us exasperated and shouting “Goddamn spies!” when the protagonists invariably did something with more layers of intrigue behind it. Lots of focus on Reuel Abbott, which
Condor
More compelling CIA action (who knew we liked spy stuff so much!) which was all the more baffling for being totally un-putdownable for around 7 of the 10 episodes, but finishing in a way so ambivalent that neither of us
Homeland – Seasons 1 to 7
Compelling CIA thriller following a sometime-unbalanced agent in her counter-terrorism work, in which she becomes very personally entangled – and also caught in the machinations of higher-level Machiavellian scheming by career spymasters. Famously slow in seasons 3 & 4, taken
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan – Season 2
More compelling CIA stuff… hard to know where to suspend disbelief about the Action Man antics of Jack Ryan, who’s ostensibly meant to have gotten himself a job as an office jockey. This provoked a little bit of shouting “Arrrgh,
The Night Manager
I suppose this one was my fault for not knowing the source material – this was a six-part adaptation of a John Le Carré book, rather than a 6 episode TV series: Tom Hiddleston’s character almost out Bond-ing James Bond,