Did you like Code 9?

[Chris Ross Leong]

Watching it out of context (I'm originally from the UK but have been living in California now for a long time) I have to say that, prima facie, it wasn't bad at all.

My young son enjoyed it (of course he hasn't seen Spooks at all) so in and of itself it was certainly enjoyable enough and well done enough for the series to continue to the end of its run, and not be cut off at the first couple of episodes, like so many of the lesser series are over here in America.

If pressed, I feel that the premise itself was at fault here - if that weren't the instance, and there were something like a "teen/tween Spooks", with the senior staff still in place (as many of you have suggested), that would have been a different story entirely, and would likely still be running today.

Code 9 just isn't serious drama when compared to its parent series. It just behaves like one, just like a teen child of a heavy hitter might, until s/he learned what that was about. However, that behavior doesn't really stand closer scrutiny, especially when compared to its parent.

Further, since Spooks has always been a plot-oriented (story oriented) enterprise, I feel that the series stands (or fell, in this case) on its central plot premise: in any good sci-fi what-if story, the new world needed to be described in its entirety. This one wasn't - too many gaps, not the least of which was "what's happened to the "real" MI-5? Presumably we're watching the world (London) as it was in Spooks, but years on, and a bomb went off. Okay, but what happened to Harry? and all the rest. Ah well.

Like slasher movies where the kids in them have presumably never watched TV or seen horror movies in their lives, we're expected to believe in their antics, whereas in actual fact all of us know better, including (mostly) the actors who are portraying those dumb kids who don't know what's around the corner, and can't imagine it either.

Plus other similar characteristics, of course, many of which have been mentioned here before, and all which contributed to make it a lightweight show, ultimately, and not the heavy hitter that Spooks continues to be.