How did you feel about Season 9?

[Kirayuki]

(17-11-2010 07:34 PM)Byatil Wrote:  To be honest, by the time Lucas had disappeared... I just didn't really care. You're supposed to feel something when a well-liked, interesting character leaves a show. It was heart-wrenching watching Roz realise that she'd have to shoot Jo, and equally horrible realising that Roz would have to die for the sake of her country. I even found Adam's death sad - and I'd only seen him in action for 1 episode!

You see for me i don't think i would have felt much if he'd have left under 'normal' circumstances. There are a few which would have changed my opinion on him... but overall i have to say that i only really found him interesting to a point where i cared about what happened to him in this series. This might be because he was a different character for these moments.
(I do think you need to look at Lucas and John as two separate identities).

I have no trouble watching the earlier series because i can accept the two different people. That and the fact that i think it's possible, like has already been mentioned, that after so many years of being Lucas he became Lucas. John would be a niggling memory in his mind until it was brought back up to the surface.

Then again. If i go analysing the holes in Spooks too much it will sap my enjoyment of the only current TV show i tend to watch. I'd rather go along with the writers tale than loose the entertainment. (Sad as that is).

Another point i'd like to make is that the writers are only human and they are new to Spooks. I hope they can see where they went wrong and remedy this in writing next series. It's a learning curve for them.

If i do find myself picking at holes however, in the end i tend to just remind myself that it's all fiction and the irritation lifts somewhat.

(17-11-2010 11:12 PM)binkie Wrote:  History, I’m afraid. Even worse ... History of Ideas. Any questions about the manifestation of evolutionary theory in 19th-century visual culture, I’m the woman of the moment!!

You're not the only person here releasing their inner essay monster

Ha! I'm applying for History at university! (Not quite history of ideas but still).
I think liking History might be a common trait amongst people who pick apart absolutely everything.

I am avoiding writing essay long replies for the mean time as i feel that once i start i won't be able to stop. That and i can't afford the time right now...
(Despite having just written a longer post than normal... Oh dear ).

Saying this though i really should be logging off about now. I have a deadline coming up soon and i need to get more work done.
More sleep = more brain power = better results.

[YOUCANTRUSTME1]

I managed to finally catch up with this latest series and I am still numb. What were they thinking? To drastically change the character of Lucas North and to insult our intelligence by having us believe that what was establish before in Series 7 and 8 just did not happen! Why could not the writers come up with some more nobler way for our hero to go into the sunset (so to speak) instead of this cowardly end? I have rewatched Series 7 and 8 and although the Lucas character always seem to have a trace of mystery about him, there was never a hint of this so called split personality J/L cop out that the writers fed us. This is not what we have expected from Spooks. I hope the writers will go back and do a through study of prior series 1-8, really do their homework or better yet rehire the prior writers who have done an excellent job and really get a feel of what Spooks was once about- the best series on bloody television- here in America and probably the World! My hats off to all of the actors who perfomed exceptionally in Series 9 especially RA, SPF and NW- each of you deserved better! GOD i miss Ros!

[jimc]

Old writers, new writers, does anybody know what happened? if I was writing on a series like this, and I was leaving, and had plot line in mind for next series, even if someone was taking over from me, I'd want to give them all I had. With the understanding it would help the transition. If I was the new writer coming in, and was presented with continuing plot, I'd be more than glad to share their vision, at least in the short term for continuity. So perhaps some of this series was already thought out? and maybe even more to come. Probably more time has been spent on Lucas than any other character, even SHP, I'm guessing some plot lines are laid out quite a bit in advance. I'm in the minority who believe the story is more credible, because Lucas is the bad penny. No question people like that exist, only interested in themselves. I should think an admirable quality in a spy.
And as far as the storyline, the rest of it seems to be following the plot that came before. So why mess about with Lucas's character? The Russian prison may have been terrible to endure, but he couldn't exactly say, "there seems to be a slight problem comrades, I'm not really Lucas North". He lived that life, and all that came with it. Perhaps they just had to tell his story with more speed, than was intended?

[BravoNine]

(18-11-2010 02:53 AM)jimc Wrote:  I'm in the minority who believe the story is more credible, because Lucas is the bad penny. No question people like that exist, only interested in themselves. I should think an admirable quality in a spy.
And as far as the storyline, the rest of it seems to be following the plot that came before. So why mess about with Lucas's character? The Russian prison may have been terrible to endure, but he couldn't exactly say, "there seems to be a slight problem comrades, I'm not really Lucas North". He lived that life, and all that came with it. Perhaps they just had to tell his story with more speed, than was intended?

Lucas is the bad penny? Sure he was a maverick and was mysterious, but for two series he was portrayed as loyal and admirable as a team-member who always came through for his team when the time was needed. So bad penny? Nope, I don't think so.

True people like that exists in real life who are only interested in themselves, but tell me, is risking his life running around London with a bleeding bullet wound to save the city very selfish? Is facing down a Russian kill-squad to let his teammates get away very selfish? Is running back to the country where he spent the last 8 years as a prisoner and tortured just because his boss needed help very selfish? Is facing down his old captor and outsmarting him to protect his country very selfish? Is risking capture and prison just to let his teammate escape with needed info very selfish? Is risking death to run back into a building about to explode just because he wants to get his partner out very selfish?

We are shown the extent of Lucas's selflessness in the missions he performs and how he looks after his team. So unless he suffers from delusions and split personalities and various mental issues (which the show never said anything about), then we are suppose to swallow that a man who gave up so much for his country, for his team, suddenly became this selfish man all about himself and his old love and he was only acting? So basically he outsmarted MI5, the CIA, the FSB, and god knows how many other agencies who knows nothing of his old identity....I mean, he must be so amazing that no one ever spotted it.....yet somehow it took Beth 5 seconds to find out the real Lucas North....

If Lucas was always written as a man who was mysterious and showed signs of selfishness, then maybe yeah, I could believe in this storyline, but for two series we were told of his loyalty and his bravery, yet now we are being told that it was just an act, that no spy agency in the world even knew that he was not Lucas North. I mean, WOW everyone just must be stupid or blind.

I don't think selfishness is an admirable quality in a spy, it would be more of selflessness in sacrifice for their country and their cause, and maybe recklessness. But if you are just about yourself, you're not exactly a spy, unless it's a spy-for-hire, then maybe. But for those agencies like CIA, FSB, and MI5, they need loyal spies, not spies out for themselves.

[HellsBells]

I think there were some brilliant stories in series 9, the weekly plots where our heroes saved the country. But the whole of the series was overshadowed by the Lucas/John story line.

[femaleBertieWooster]

Binkie and Byatil, keep talking. Your conversation is very interesting.

I'm going to Google "History of Ideas" right now. Have any book recommendations?

[binkie]

(18-11-2010 12:03 AM)Kirayuki Wrote:  

(17-11-2010 11:12 PM)binkie Wrote:  History, I’m afraid. Even worse ... History of Ideas. Any questions about the manifestation of evolutionary theory in 19th-century visual culture, I’m the woman of the moment!!

You're not the only person here releasing their inner essay monster

Ha! I'm applying for History at university! (Not quite history of ideas but still).
I think liking History might be a common trait amongst people who pick apart absolutely everything.

Good luck with your application, Kirayuki. I heartily endorse your choice, obviously! Where are you hoping to go? You are quite right about History lending itself as an analytical tool to the service of those with restless interests. I’m convinced (though, admittedly, biased) that History is absolutely the humanities equivalent of Mathematics: the key to the resolution of the universe and its operation. If your favourite question is ‘Why?’, then you have made the right decision for your university career.

(18-11-2010 04:25 PM)femaleBertieWooster Wrote:  Binkie and Byatil, keep talking. Your conversation is very interesting.

I'm going to Google "History of Ideas" right now. Have any book recommendations?

I feel like a recruitment agent for my subject! Thanks for trusting me to recommend something. Aside from the many tonnes of multi-volume copy acting as ready-made libraries for people who just can’t get enough of The Enlightenment in context (!), it’s probably better to start with a classic overview like Berlin & Henry The crooked timber of humanity. If you prefer to go in feet first – and want to think your way around some really interesting propositions – any of these offers valuable commentary applicable in interdisciplinary terms: Barthes, Mythologies; Gellner, Words and things; Jung and Kerenyi, The science of mythology; Bachelard, The poetics of space; Sudjic, The language of things; Graves, The white goddess; Campbell, The hero with a thousand faces. If you are feeling brave, you could try Foucault, Discipline and punish, but be warned, he chooses some pretty nasty detail to argue his point. Let me know if you love or hate anything from the list

And now, so I don’t get banned for straying dramatically off-topic...

Byatil, there is a lot of really interesting stuff in your last post. I definitely want to address the points you raise regarding Lucas’ relationship with Oleg, the contribution to Lucas’ sense of self provided by the tattoos and his need to feel, and be perceived as, ‘normal’. These are areas of tremendous significance to the ways in which seasons 7 and 8 were situating the character in an increasingly dichotomous impasse with his experiences of self and history. Yet again, this was an arc of existential subtlety abandoned in season 9 in favour of what was, I thought, a disappointingly literal resolution. There are separate threads where my responses probably more properly belong, so I will post in these and link back (once I’ve worked out how to do it!).

(18-11-2010 02:53 AM)jimc Wrote:  Perhaps they just had to tell his story with more speed, than was intended?

As BravoNine, and others, have said there is no real, or defensible, objection to the idea explored in season 9 that Lucas was a character waiting to implode, and that he was more than likely to do so in a way that would require his colleagues to make difficult choices. I can honestly say that the first thought I had when the hood came off Lucas at the handover in 7.1 was: “Well, he’s going to end up shooting himself in the head.” Lucas was never going to come to a good or happy end. The problem some people (including me) are having, and will almost certainly continue to have, is not that the story was told too quickly, but that the end of the story we were shown was the end of a story different from the one that started with the handover in Bexley. Lucas’ expressions, motives and inner life were illustrated in classical narrative terms (with a short break for some magical realism in the first few minutes of 8.4, which has never been satisfactorily explained). If he seemed a suspicious and unknowable presence, that is because he was suddenly a stranger to himself. Look at the number of times we are shown footage of Lucas sleeping with his head flat on the mattress, rather than on a pillow. By the middle of season 8, he is living in an anonymous white-painted, steel-accessorised flat, even as he is engaged in what he fully believes to be a love affair that will save him from his own emotional absence. He is living in a prison cell. This is a man who never came home. The story of the-man-who-was-John is not a facet of the Lucas narrative. It is a projection onto that narrative of a story which played no structural part in it. A good literary example of the same problem is that of the children’s classic The wolves of Willoughby Chase, which begins as a brilliant other-London construct and ends as a version of the babes-in-the-wood trope. Both elements are well rendered and emotionally sound, but the one does not conclude the other. Spooks has denied the end of Lucas’ narrative and told instead the end of a story it had not begun.

[Belle]

When Lucas was released he told Harry something in the line of: if you are surrounded by people who don't trust you, you aren't home. So maybe he never trusted himself, hence the impersonal flat(s), the clingy need to feel cared about, to feel trusted. He needed other people to trust him because he could not trust himself, he didn't know who he was and it's hard to trust a stranger. I wonder, if his ex wouldn't have difforced him or if he encountered someone who really loved him, he would have been able to eventualy love himself, because I feel like all the selfsacrifice we saw in s7 & 8 was a tool to feel needed, to prove to his colleagues he could be trusted, to prove to himself he was worth it, hell, just to feel (alive)! When people are traumatised they sometimes do the weirdest things to feel something, maybe they cut themselves, maybe they withdraw from real life, maybe they become someone really different.
But said all that, that doesn't explain to me why someone who spend 8 years in prison for his country and to protect his fellow officers, carrying all the trauma on his shoulders, would suddenly be as selfish as they portrayed John.
I mean when he was first imprisoned, he was 'Lucas' for 6 years or so, surely you don't forget in 6 years who you really are (John) and therefore it's hard to believe that 'John' would spend all that time in captivaty to protect others. The story just doesn't work for me in that way.
John would never sacrifice all that time of his life 'for queen and country', but Lucas did!
I could believe that Lucas finally cracked under all the bad he went through and no one would argue with the fact that eventually he would take his own life, but the whole 'John' thing just doesn't add up!
Am I making sense?

[HellsBells]

Yes, Belle, you're making sense.
Binkie, fascinating insights again, I can't wait to re watch these episodes again to see these points you are making.
Belle and binkie, it is wonderful how you are able to put into words what I felt but could express properly, that series 9 Lucas did not fit with previous series' Lucas.

[binkie]

(19-11-2010 12:11 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  Yes, Belle, you're making sense.
Binkie, fascinating insights again, I can't wait to re watch these episodes again to see these points you are making.
Belle and binkie, it is wonderful how you are able to put into words what I felt but could express properly, that series 9 Lucas did not fit with previous series' Lucas.

Tsk, HellsBells. Stop putting yourself down! I have seen you all over this forum making incisive observations and raising interesting interpretive points. You have certainly made me think again about a couple of areas where my own evaluation of what we were shown this season was under-developed. Keep up the good work