SPOOKS: CODE MINUS 9

From Kudos Film & Television (Spooks) and American television writer and producer Frank Spotnitz (Strike Back, The X-Files) comes Hunted, which started this thursday on BBC One. The eight-part new espionage/thriller drama is a co-production of Kudos and Spotnitz's Big Light Productions for the BBC and HBO's sibling pay-cable channel Cinemax .

Australian actress Melissa George (The Slap) stars as Sam Hunter, an operative for a private intelligence company called Byzantium (Byzantium!) Left dead after a mission in Morocco sher returns to her employer in London one year later and ask her job back, without knowing who ordered to kill her and who to trust. Particularly as she suspects her lover and colleague Aidan Marsh (Adam Rayner). Her new assignment is to infiltrate the house of a mobster turned property businessman who is currently bidding to acquire a Pakistani billion-pound hydroelectric facility. But a terrifying blank faced assassin is after Sam.

« What did you expect? I'm a spy. »

One year after the final series of Spooks arrives the latest foray of Kudos and BBC One into the world of espionage. For Hunted the indie joins forces with X-Files veteran Frank Spotnitz, the man who morphed Chris Ryan's Strike Back into that brilliant action/adventure buddy movie of the week called Strike Back: Project Dawn for Sky and Cinemax. This Anglo-American co-production is filmed in Morocco, Scotland and London on a budget looking comfortable. Reliable talents like Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost), Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones), Stephen Campbell Moore (Titanic) or Patrick Malahide are amongst the cast.

Except that Hunted is neither Spooks nor even Strike Back: Project Dawn. It's a second-hand Alias (in which Melissa George played Lauren Reed) or La Femme Nikita or any recent U.S. entry in the thriller/spy  genre. The dialogues are terrible and the story has enough cliches to inspire a dozen spoofs to Charlie Brooker. Maybe the one who wanted Sam Hunter dead is a lover of good dramas. Spooks concluded its nine-year run after a couple of unsatisfactory series, Hunted is in advance. Cinemax will premiere the show on Friday, October 19.

http://www.cultbox.co.uk/reviews/episodes/4987-hunted-series-1-episode-1-review
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9587882/Hunted-BBC-One-review.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/oct/04/hunted-series-one-episode-one
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/hunted/

STRIKE AND STRIKE AGAIN

HBO's sister pay-cable channel Cinemax has picked up a 10-episode new season of the action series Strike Back to air next year.

Based originally on the best-selling book by former SAS man Chris Ryan, Strike Back first starred Richard Armitage (Spooks) as ex-British Special Forces soldier John Porter. In May 2010, Brit satcaster Sky aired the 6 X 60-minute drama, produced by Left Bank Pictures for Sky1 HD and Sky1, and distributed by BBC Worldwide. In January 2011, German channel RTL II aired it in a 3 X 90-minute version, and Canal Plus will air this version in France.

Following the success of this initial series, a second season was commissioned by Sky jointly with the Americans of HBO/Cinemax. Retooled for Cinemax's original programming, this new 10-part series (known as Strike Back: Project Dawn in the United Kingdom) has American scriptwriter Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) among its writers. It stars Sullivan Stappleton as Damien Scott, a former U.S. Special Forces operative who joins Section 20 - a secret branch of MI6. He works with Section 20 agent Michael Stonebridge, played by Philip Winchester (Camelot, Crusoe).

Cinemax announced yesterday that it has renewed Strike Back for another 10-part series. Past the fact that the first series seems disregarded in America as shown only in an alternate universe (Project Dawn is introduced as "Season One"), the result of this U.S. co-production is actually very good. The revamped Strike Back is a cross between a Tom Clancy under acid and a comic book, an ultra cool action/adventure old school show. Cinemax, Sky and Left Bank have clearly succeeded where Starz and the BBC have failed with Torchwood: Miracle Day, done on the same programming model.

The excellent title song of the current series, Short Change Hero, is performed by The Heavy. And the absolutely superb title sequence is designed by the very talented folks of Momoco (Luther, Zen, Silk, Injustice, etc.)

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/10/06/strike-back-renewed-by-cinemax-for-a-second-season/106353/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Tvbythenumbers+%28TVbytheNumbers%29
http://sky1.sky.com/strike-back
http://www.cinemax.com/strike-back/