Spooks spin-off Spooks: Code 9 launched on BBC3 last night with a double bill of episodes from 9pm.
The Times' Andrew Billen seems to have been the only national newspaper critic to have reviewed to today - but what did you think?
Billen summed up the heavily promoted new BBC3 drama as "to Spooks what Torchwood is to Doctor Who (ie, not as good)".
With a cast of fresh-faces and a budget of several pounds, it fancies itself as gritty and hip, combining state torture with a boozy, flirty This Life house-share for the torturers, yet it lacks the balls to link the "code-9" attack with either the Olympics or al-Qaeda.
On the web, TV Scoop's reviewer had this to say:
One commenter to these pages speculated that the series would be a mixture of Spooks and Skins. That was more accurate than I wanted to believe. It was Spooks, but urban. They should have just called it Spookz.
My Guardian colleague Gareth McLean was none-too impressed, in an online preview published on Friday. And then some:
As spin-offs go, Spooks: Code 9 is ropey indeed. I can't quite decide what's most irritating - the clunky, lazy writing, the fact that they all live in a house together, the random relocation to Leeds, an insistence on making the female spies dance suggestively in club scenes, the dreadful haircut sported by Georgia Moffet, or a combination of all of the above. But whatever it is, Spooks Code 9 is an utterly cynical venture and a damning indictment of the lack of imagination at work in commissioning new drama. (BBC3 will commission this twaddle but not the genuinely intriguing The Things I Haven't Told You. You go figure, because I'm close to giving up.)
And another Guardian writer, Adrian Lobb, thinks the spin-off website is better than the drama:
When major events occur on our TV screens, whether it's a bad guy being bagged or a good guy being blasted to kingdom come (this is a Spooks spin-off, so we can't expect the whole team to survive the series), additional information will filter through via news reports on the site.
But will it work? I've seen a preview, and the show is disappointing. But with such energy fizzing throughout its online extensions, the question is no longer what these web offerings can add to the television experience. Rather, will the televisual adventures of these maverick young MI5 operatives live up to Spooks Code 9's multi-layered web of online activity?
