(07-03-2011 03:25 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  Shame. I hear that Laila Rouass is actually a pretty good actress given the right material. I spent most of S9 hoping that Maya was the master mind of Lucas' down fall.

It is a complete shame indeed because I watched Laila Rouass on some other shows, the most recently on Sarah Jane Adventures, and to say I was shocked that she actually had acting abilities was an understatement. You would have thought that given what we saw with sponge-personality-Maya that it must be that she cannot act, but lo and behold, she CAN actually act perfectly fine when given a material that actually has a good character written!

I too hoped that Maya was a mastermind, Laila can play a mean villain!

It's a shame that the writers saddled her with this character that barely had any personality.

(07-03-2011 03:25 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  Some blog somewhere described Maya as a "two dimensional doe-eyed plot device."

TWO-dimensional? ONE-dimensional is closer.

It's another lost opportunity. They could've done so much more with her character, e.g. have her betraying and double-crossing Lucas at the end, and running off with Albany and Vaughan to the Chinese. Instead we have a doe-eyed pained-expressioned cardboard cut-out, none of whose scenes with RA showed any passion from her side. Only his scene when she died showed any emotion, and by then it was too late.

That's good if Laila's better in other programs. Doesn't say much for Spooks.

(07-03-2011 07:45 PM)BoHenley Wrote:  

(07-03-2011 03:25 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  Some blog somewhere described Maya as a "two dimensional doe-eyed plot device."

TWO-dimensional? ONE-dimensional is closer.

It's another lost opportunity. They could've done so much more with her character, e.g. have her betraying and double-crossing Lucas at the end, and running off with Albany and Vaughan to the Chinese. Instead we have a doe-eyed pained-expressioned cardboard cut-out, none of whose scenes with RA showed any passion from her side. Only his scene when she died showed any emotion, and by then it was too late.

That's good if Laila's better in other programs. Doesn't say much for Spooks.

Now that would have been an interesting twist! It's a shame Maya was such a weak character, there was a lot of potential to develop her into something more interesting (if not at all plausible!).

I've figured out finally what exactly it is that really gets my goat about 9.8. In a show that sold itself on realistic, intelligent drama, in a show that sold itself to me as such, the writers wrote a big, epic, twisty turny, showy finale that relied on style over substance, telling not showing, a cheap quick emotional fix aimed at mass consumer dumbed down for the masses entertainment over artistic merit.

If I had to specify why I got so annoyed about Spooks Lucas/John story, it's that.

Oh and the recent interview with the writer's also indicated to me that they had no respect for Lucas as a character, Richard Armitage's role in bringing him to life or in fact any respect for those who liked Lucas in seven and eight. Their comment about PF fans came across as a more 'in your face' than funny for me.

To me it was like they hit the wall because so much as stated in this thread didn`t make sense.There was so much potential and I don`t know why they had to write Lucas out that way.I would love to have seen that US hacker have more lines as she seemed like an episode of stuff herself but instead they chose to have Lucas let her die creating even more confusion for us.
It was still an enjoyable season overall because of the character interactions but I feel they really need to get back to the old strengths of the team and somehow have Tariq have someone to interact with the way malcolm and colin did so well as Ruth has developed into more of an assistant to Harry and that works well.

^Also Dmitri and Beth to get some backstory would be lovely

And Tariq too. Will we EVER get something about him?

You mean the bit about having a cousin living in Lahore wasn't enough for you?

I agree though. We see so much of some characters (and IMO, too much of some *cough* Lucas*) and so little of others that it would be nice to get some background on some of the newer Grid staff. Even some little annecdotes from Dimitri's time in the SBS would be great.

*I don't mean this in the physical sense by the way, just that I think his character's been a bit over-done in terms of all the storylines thrown at him, while others struggle along with scarcely a back-story in sight...

I do think S10 will solve some of this.

[Then again, I thought S9 would wrap up some of Lucas's background that we knew (at the time)...]

OK guys, we're veering off topic here. Try and stick to discussing the episode in question. There's several threads in the season 10 sub forum that can better accommodate discussion of what you want to see happen from this point on.