Was it time for Spooks to finish?

[nothingisasitseems]

The official line is that part way through Series 10 Kudos felt the programme might be heading towards the end of its shelf life and put it to the BBC that this be the last Series. The BBC agreed.

I feel it is possible that Kudos was pushed into this. With cutbacks and the fact that this Season had been reduced to 6 episdoes they perhaps thought cancellation was coming anyway and decided to bite the bullet.

In his excellent Five Live interview Nitrus made the pertinent point that it was perhaps better to go out while the show was still riding high and not eventually fade away with a whimper.

How do you know know though what the next Seaon will bring? I actually believed that Season 8 would be the last and S9 was so long being confirmed that both it and S10 were a bonus.

Some may point to the viewing figures for S10 and suggest that interest was waning but I believe these are deceptive. The BBC threw Spooks to the wolves by scheduling it against the immensely popular Downton Abbey. At any peak viewing time there will be a significant number of casual viewers and if Spooks had been say on a Monday or Thursday then while it is, of course, hypothetical I firmly believe the viewing figures would have been 1m+ higher and similar to S9.

There was quite an interesting Grid and the characters of Erin and Calum could have been developed. I was hoping for some of this in S10 but I suppose with it being the final Series and only six episodes long there wasn't time for this.

Although I loved Dimitri and think highly of Max Brown I'm not 100% convinced the Spooks role was a suitable one to best showcase his talent.

There was probably room for one more member albeit a "backroom" one and I presume if it was to continue Ruth would not have been written out.

But I definitely feel there was the scope for another two Seasons.

[A Cousin]

(31-10-2011 01:05 PM)nothingisasitseems Wrote:  There was probably room for one more member albeit a "backroom" one and I presume if it was to continue Ruth would not have been written out.

I am not at all certain we can make this presumption. NW may just as easily decided to leave on her own accord. That is the primary reason for most of the character exits, despite the actors' fun little tease about flipping to the end of the scripts to see if they made it. The fact of the matter is that contracts are negotiated and signed before an actor starts work. They may not tell their co-workers or know exactly how/when they exit, but they and TPTB know which series will be their last.

I was actually rather impressed with the ratings given the Leviathan it was up against. So good for you Spooks! I completely agree that it would have picked up at least another 1M had it not had that kind of competition. That is purely the loss of those 1M viewers.

I think that Spooks has evolved into a more legendary and epic and mythic and operatic piece over the years. I think that S10 was a culmination of this trend. I am hard-pressed to think that they could make anything more spectacularly emotionally earth-shattering than S10, though. Not sure where you go from there and maintain it's general credibility? So, while I will miss it terribly, I can see what they are saying about ending on a high. However, I do hope that they revisit it from time to time.

Anyway, shoulda-woulda-coulda.... I think that the creators of Spooks are brilliant enough at what they do to keep it going, but if they are not committed fully to it or do not have the resources to maintain it for whatever reason, it turns into moot point.

[Naivety]

I will miss Spooks very much, but I would say it was time for it to bow out. It would have been awful to see it limping along with dwindling audiences. The best shows know to finish with the viewers wanting more.

It won't be back. I wouldn't want it to. How could it top the last episode?

[JHyde]

I have moved this to the season 10 sub-forum as it is better suited to discussion there.

[Scarlet]

Much as I wish it wasn't the end, and as much as I didn't like the H & R ending, or the ultimate storyline (or rather what it turned out to be in the last episode), I think it was probably the right decision. I would rather it end now than have had another season with even further cuts and maybe being cut to 5 episodes. For me it's more disappointment not that it ended per se, but that I wish they could have had the budget to do the last season better. 8 episodes at least, but then I still long for the 10 episode days! The resolution seemed hurried to me and as someone else said it may have not been so with a few more episodes. I have to say also that I thought the supporting cast were weaker towards the end. Not necessarily the acting but the characters. I didn't see the point of Beth last season and Erin got on my nerves too by the end. While I loved Ruth's return, I felt the show was never quite the same since Jo and Ros left (my two favourite characters after Harry and Ruth! Really missed both of them and think they complemented each other in different ways as team members. And of course Malcolm. So in my view yes, it was right to end as things stood but that doesn't mean I still don't feel the pain! I still can't quite believe there will be no more.
I don't know how these things work, - does Kudos determine the budget for each series and then sell it to the BBC or does the BBC give them a certain budget to make it? If the BBC kept cutting their budget, this could explain why they decided to end it now rather than dragging on even though the BBC had not cut the programme.

[A Cousin]

(01-11-2011 03:52 PM)Scarlet Wrote:  I don't know how these things work, - does Kudos determine the budget for each series and then sell it to the BBC or does the BBC give them a certain budget to make it? If the BBC kept cutting their budget, this could explain why they decided to end it now rather than dragging on even though the BBC had not cut the programme.

I am not fully up to speed on it either, but as I understand it, the BBC is required to "commission" a specific amount of their programming (25% I believe) from independent production companies, of which KUDOs is one. BBC1 has room for up to 14 drama series of 6-8 60-minute episodes at 21:00 and/or 3-4 90-minute episodes at 20:30. The tariff range (what I assume is a fee the BBC pays to Kudos for production?) for any of these should be targeted between £500k - £750k per hour. I would imagine that it is that tariff range that is being cut? I do not know if Kudo's puts any of their money into production or if they rely completely on the BBC to fund projects. I would imagine they fund it at least partially. Consequently, the lower the tariff goes the more money Kudos has to sink into a project to maintain standards.

For more on the boring business of the commissioning business, check this out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/ho...ndex.shtml

Really, the thing to take away from all of this is that there is so much more that goes into commissioning and scheduling than we can even begin to wrap our brains around. It is best to let the professionals do their jobs.

[loladom]

Prior to the ending of S10, I was all for it going on. I felt it had another couple of seasons in it and as many have said, certainly more than 6 for the last season. HOWEVER, it's clear the show has suffered from budget cuts and for it to have continued, it would have needed more money than was being offered. (I suspect money was at least part of the decision to end it.) I agree about the lack of character development after Ros left - apart from Harry, Ruth and the HS (and I credit the actors with this as much as the writers). And then there was the destruction of Lucas.

Although I think the show hasn't been 'definitively ended' and it could come back, I am not sure I'd want it to. It has survived the loss of Ruth before, but there were other strong characters and the H&R thing hadn't developed in quite the same way. Aside from Harry (who remains utterly in my heart) there is no connection to any of the other remaining characters for me. I certainly wouldn't care if any of them didn't make it. Eye candy or not.

I won't be popular for saying this, but I don't believe it should continue with the writing team of s9 and 10. I'd have preferred some input from some of the original writers, to strengthen the plot of the week and give greater depth to the overall arc. Silktie makes an excellent observation about the similarities of s9/10 arc in the 10.6 thread and I agree wholeheartedly. Whatever our feelings of the ending, the writing of the latter seasons was not as complex, nor as witty as in the early seasons.

[Alpha One]

(01-11-2011 05:08 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  

(01-11-2011 03:52 PM)Scarlet Wrote:  I don't know how these things work, - does Kudos determine the budget for each series and then sell it to the BBC or does the BBC give them a certain budget to make it? If the BBC kept cutting their budget, this could explain why they decided to end it now rather than dragging on even though the BBC had not cut the programme.

I am not fully up to speed on it either, but as I understand it, the BBC is required to "commission" a specific amount of their programming (25% I believe) from independent production companies, of which KUDOs is one. BBC1 has room for up to 14 drama series of 6-8 60-minute episodes at 21:00 and/or 3-4 90-minute episodes at 20:30. The tariff range (what I assume is a fee the BBC pays to Kudos for production?) for any of these should be targeted between £500k - £750k per hour. I would imagine that it is that tariff range that is being cut? I do not know if Kudo's puts any of their money into production or if they rely completely on the BBC to fund projects. I would imagine they fund it at least partially. Consequently, the lower the tariff goes the more money Kudos has to sink into a project to maintain standards.

For more on the boring business of the commissioning business, check this out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/ho...ndex.shtml

Really, the thing to take away from all of this is that there is so much more that goes into commissioning and scheduling than we can even begin to wrap our brains around. It is best to let the professionals do their jobs.

I read that Kudos lost their independent status when the Shine group (their parent company) was sold to NewsCorp. It was in the Guardian, I think. I don't know if this affected decisions on continuing series.

Last year, Ben Stephenson mooted the ending of a number of long running drama series including Spooks. There was an outcry at the time. I'm an avid Spooks fan so I look beneath the surface of decisions. Did Kudos agree to accept responsibility for ending the series to avoid the BBC being blamed, as I've read elsewhere?

I think it was time to end it though. S10 had a feeling of being special because it was the last. If that hadn't been the case, I think the storylines might have been different and possibly more mundane. The middle episodes were very samey

[stelios]

I really do think that Spooks could have carried on, however the biggest problem was budgets.

The great thing with Spooks is that although they had explored all their characters, they could have had a change around and also they story could have changed because Spooks was always close to real life goings on.

It was a shock to see Tom in the final, what could have been good is if Harry either retired after Ruth's death or got a promotion and would have been good to see Tom as head of section D.

oh well, we can all wish or not.

S

[inveniam]

I think it was time for Spooks to end, yes. Although I would love another series, I could see little hints of the writing getting a bit off - nothing too major, it was still excellent - and I would rather it finished now than just getting bad, and then worse. Maybe they could bring it back in a few years? I'd miss Peter Firth as Harry, but I'm sure someone else could fill the shoes just as nicely. As long as Dimiti and Callum were still around. Familiar faces draw an old audience, new ones bring both!