The Problem of Spooks: Part One
Jul. 23rd, 2011 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dweomeroflightI've been meaning to write Spooks meta forever but I kept putting it off because I have so much to say, not all of which is complimentary. I love Spooks as a show (most of the time), I love the characters, the actors and the whole "spying thing." I based the title for this post off Neil Gaiman's 'The Problem of Susan': a critical response to C.S.Lewis' treatment of Susan Pevensie in the Chronicles of Narnia. This is because I believe as a writer that critical engagement with a text is important.
In a later post, I will look back and highlight things that have been problematic for Spooks for awhile now (circa s4 and 5) but first I really think I need to deal with Spooks, series nine as myself and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_silverdoe keep spamming up our flist's entries with random Nine Meta and I feel sorry for my poor flist.
There has been so much fandom wank over series nine. So much so that it is very difficult to have an opinion on the matter anywhere but your own blog. It was this wankery that had me leave the forums due to refusal to allow alternative opinions and fan silencing. I was labelled weird things like "intellectual snob" for pointing out the very obvious... "Lucas and John SAY WHAT?" But the thing is, I'm not one to be silenced and I feel like if I just write this all out I will feel alot better and stop annoying everyone with my meta left, right and centre.
Ah. Spooks series nine. Was Lucas North in 9.7 and 8 a character assasination? Was it a case of deconstruction? I don't know if the answers to these questions particularly matter and I don't know if I would go that far myself because what I care about is the quality of the writing itself. What does matter is wether or not the story made sense. Wether or not this made for a logical progression from s7 through to the final reveal in 9.8. The simple answer to this is that no it did not.
And now on to my s9 fandom gripe. There seems to be an odd perception amongst certain people in Spooks fandom that if you disliked Lucas is John story you must be a batshit crazy Armitage Army supporter, or at the very least a person who doesn't mind the odd fantasy about RA and therefore got unjustifyably annoyed when his character ceased to be the hero (the writers seem to number amongst these people from one interview in particular). Such an assertion is frankly idiotic. One can be invested in a character without them being your favourite one or being their fangirl having sexy dreams about them. One can have a favourite character who is bad (HELLO BELLATRIX LESTRANGE/or closer to Spooks spygran/Connie) and still like their character and storyline. It's a very simple equation. Things just have to make sense.
The problem with Spooks series nine and Lucas is John is that without a lot of magical explaining away and filling in gaps yourself it didn't make for an understandable plot. Spooks s7 established an ambiguous plotline re Harry and Lucas and Russian prison and trust issues. This was kind of continued on the side in s8, but mainly Lucas' dedication and loyalty to the team was emphasised. Therefore, the logical plot progression from this point is to have a storyline involving Russia and Harry and the morals and ethics of torture and spooking and most importantly loyalty. Series nine wildly sidestepped this dangling plot thread by creating a new convoluted plot. I'm not saying the plot could never have worked with alot of thought, but never in eight episodes with two new characters in Maya and Vaugn plus a suitcase plus fake file Albany plus Chinese involvement it was all too much! For any writer to coherently manage! Not only that, we were told that Lucas had somehow repressed his personality and had faked being someone else for years, the ultimate betrayer, despite the shows previous insistence on his excessive loyalty. And MI5 had never noticed this.
At this point I will quote another blogger because they said this so much more eloquently than me, Lucas North... Nowhere Man, Mr In Between, The Man Who Never Was. All are fitting, I think, because there are no concise means to capture this enigma in a vortex of illogic that was Lucas' ill-fated storyline and character in Spooks Series 9. When Maya said in 9.8 "You know how I knew it was the truth? Because for the first time you made sense," I agree with Vicky Frost at The Guardian. That's bloody optimistic Maya. Lucas makes less sense than ever before.
The blogger goes on to say, Many have commented on the complete abrogation of this character by the middle of Series 9 for the sake of introducing a psychopath who can't be a psychopath, imaginatively named Bateman. Who is John Bateman? Lucas' alter ego? A split personality? No, he is a remorseless murderer who dreamed 15 years of a noble and self-sacrificial life as an MI 5 Agent, who, then, willy nilly, went back to killing without conscience for the sake of true love and an innocence he never possessed. Lucas/John was all over the place ashestia8 pointed out. One second he was cold blooded and hyper organised and devilishly intelligent. The next he was a snivelling coward with a soft heart who just wanted "To be someone." Well so do I writers, so do I. But I didn't think killing someone would give me my dream identity.
Nothing that happened to not-Lucas could ever be tragic. Nothing was. That he escape or died? A mere bagatelle. After all his banging on, not-Lucas slipped quietly away, unmourned. There was nothing tragic about any part of his life. Not Lucas=John just sos you know ;) And every word of this rings true. John was a cipher, a blank slate, a black spot of evil to prove a point. And this is the reason I suspect, that many fans said they felt nothing when he died.
Now we get onto what is most relevant to me: With the advent of John, the only thing truly tragic about Lucas is that his story was never played out. It was replaced. And Lucas ceased to exist. But all of John's suffering belonged to Lucas and will always belong to Lucas of Series 7 and 8. Not only have the writers ignored the trajectory of Lucas in s7 and 8, they have also ruined fans perceptions of him in those earlier seasons. How difficult is it to block out John now we have seen series nine? How is it possible to seperate Lucas from John when nine is the only complete answer about his character that we will ever get? As the blogger writes, Lucas is not even dignified with any sort of ending, never mind a noble one. He doesn't go out with a bang or a whimper. Meanwhile, the character of Bateman, absurdly, can only pretend to have Lucas' qualities, and pretend to have his emotions and behaviour, like some overgrown sock puppet.
The Lucas is John story is an enormous copout, not just for Lucas/RA/Harry fans, but also and here's the part I wish certain people would get into their thick skulls anyone who was remotely interested in and invested in the Lucas storyline As Spooks has always sold itself as a character ensemble show, it is logical to assume that people are following more than one characters storyline. When a main characters storyline makes about as much sense as inviting Darth Vadar with his deathstar to your wedding, can you blame fans generally, RA fans or otherwise, for getting miffed?
Which brings me to another point. One three star Amazon reviewer wrote a lukewarm but still positive review about Spooks Nine mentioning that in the past it had been claimed that the scripts highlighted the actors talents. In this case, the person wrote, it was a case of the actors salvaging the script. And on the Spooks forum another, more critical person, wrote that the situation with Spooks had always been one of "high hokum fun," as PF said, and really, when have most of the situations ever been strictly believable? No, what anchors people to Spooks is the characters the one constant is connecting with the characters whichever ones they may be.
The Spooks nine writers made the mistake of using ridiculous plotlines with a ridiculous character progression (and it worries me that they seemed to have not learnt from this in terms of s10) and for some fans this has completely shattered both faith in the show and the beliveability factor. Before there was a realness to the characters, they were knowable. With the Lucas storyline there is no believability if you watch the show in sequence, we are not graced with the knowable in how John operates as Lucas, and this leaves us with what? Writers who effectively can retcon any story they like without caring what the fans think because there is so much wankery over the whole thing. And ultimately this is my problem with those who attempt to shut people like me down when we point these things out, when they claim us all to be either elitist snobs or Armitage Army Crazies; these Spooks fans silence an entire section of their own fandom and at the same time, give the writers legitimacy; legitimacy to do the whole thing all over again, perhaps with an even more popular character, with just as little respect for invested viewers.
Storytelling matters, and shock value won't keep fans forever. Have some respect for the show, for its characters, and for your audience who watches it,who would like some answers and would like to not have their intelligence insulted. I'm not saying writers should write to please everyone. They shouldn't. But they do need to respect that the audience is invested in longrunning characters, characters who already have a backstory that has yet to be explained and who already have certain canon traits set out. Respect is not an exclusive right handed to a privelaged few in the audience, it should extend to everyone, regardless of if they are involved with the Armitage Army gang or not. Lucas fans have just as much right to expect a sensible character trajectory for Lucas as Ruth fans expect the same for Ruth, Harry fans for Harry. Their opinion as hardcore RA fans, my opinion as a general Spooks fan, is perfectly as valid as yours.
And on that note I leave you with a question. If it had been Harry with the double life or even Ruth how many people would still be lauding the existential genius of the writers?
In a later post, I will look back and highlight things that have been problematic for Spooks for awhile now (circa s4 and 5) but first I really think I need to deal with Spooks, series nine as myself and
the_silverdoe keep spamming up our flist's entries with random Nine Meta and I feel sorry for my poor flist.There has been so much fandom wank over series nine. So much so that it is very difficult to have an opinion on the matter anywhere but your own blog. It was this wankery that had me leave the forums due to refusal to allow alternative opinions and fan silencing. I was labelled weird things like "intellectual snob" for pointing out the very obvious... "Lucas and John SAY WHAT?" But the thing is, I'm not one to be silenced and I feel like if I just write this all out I will feel alot better and stop annoying everyone with my meta left, right and centre.
Ah. Spooks series nine. Was Lucas North in 9.7 and 8 a character assasination? Was it a case of deconstruction? I don't know if the answers to these questions particularly matter and I don't know if I would go that far myself because what I care about is the quality of the writing itself. What does matter is wether or not the story made sense. Wether or not this made for a logical progression from s7 through to the final reveal in 9.8. The simple answer to this is that no it did not.
And now on to my s9 fandom gripe. There seems to be an odd perception amongst certain people in Spooks fandom that if you disliked Lucas is John story you must be a batshit crazy Armitage Army supporter, or at the very least a person who doesn't mind the odd fantasy about RA and therefore got unjustifyably annoyed when his character ceased to be the hero (the writers seem to number amongst these people from one interview in particular). Such an assertion is frankly idiotic. One can be invested in a character without them being your favourite one or being their fangirl having sexy dreams about them. One can have a favourite character who is bad (HELLO BELLATRIX LESTRANGE/or closer to Spooks spygran/Connie) and still like their character and storyline. It's a very simple equation. Things just have to make sense.
The problem with Spooks series nine and Lucas is John is that without a lot of magical explaining away and filling in gaps yourself it didn't make for an understandable plot. Spooks s7 established an ambiguous plotline re Harry and Lucas and Russian prison and trust issues. This was kind of continued on the side in s8, but mainly Lucas' dedication and loyalty to the team was emphasised. Therefore, the logical plot progression from this point is to have a storyline involving Russia and Harry and the morals and ethics of torture and spooking and most importantly loyalty. Series nine wildly sidestepped this dangling plot thread by creating a new convoluted plot. I'm not saying the plot could never have worked with alot of thought, but never in eight episodes with two new characters in Maya and Vaugn plus a suitcase plus fake file Albany plus Chinese involvement it was all too much! For any writer to coherently manage! Not only that, we were told that Lucas had somehow repressed his personality and had faked being someone else for years, the ultimate betrayer, despite the shows previous insistence on his excessive loyalty. And MI5 had never noticed this.
At this point I will quote another blogger because they said this so much more eloquently than me, Lucas North... Nowhere Man, Mr In Between, The Man Who Never Was. All are fitting, I think, because there are no concise means to capture this enigma in a vortex of illogic that was Lucas' ill-fated storyline and character in Spooks Series 9. When Maya said in 9.8 "You know how I knew it was the truth? Because for the first time you made sense," I agree with Vicky Frost at The Guardian. That's bloody optimistic Maya. Lucas makes less sense than ever before.
The blogger goes on to say, Many have commented on the complete abrogation of this character by the middle of Series 9 for the sake of introducing a psychopath who can't be a psychopath, imaginatively named Bateman. Who is John Bateman? Lucas' alter ego? A split personality? No, he is a remorseless murderer who dreamed 15 years of a noble and self-sacrificial life as an MI 5 Agent, who, then, willy nilly, went back to killing without conscience for the sake of true love and an innocence he never possessed. Lucas/John was all over the place as
hestia8 pointed out. One second he was cold blooded and hyper organised and devilishly intelligent. The next he was a snivelling coward with a soft heart who just wanted "To be someone." Well so do I writers, so do I. But I didn't think killing someone would give me my dream identity.Nothing that happened to not-Lucas could ever be tragic. Nothing was. That he escape or died? A mere bagatelle. After all his banging on, not-Lucas slipped quietly away, unmourned. There was nothing tragic about any part of his life. Not Lucas=John just sos you know ;) And every word of this rings true. John was a cipher, a blank slate, a black spot of evil to prove a point. And this is the reason I suspect, that many fans said they felt nothing when he died.
Now we get onto what is most relevant to me: With the advent of John, the only thing truly tragic about Lucas is that his story was never played out. It was replaced. And Lucas ceased to exist. But all of John's suffering belonged to Lucas and will always belong to Lucas of Series 7 and 8. Not only have the writers ignored the trajectory of Lucas in s7 and 8, they have also ruined fans perceptions of him in those earlier seasons. How difficult is it to block out John now we have seen series nine? How is it possible to seperate Lucas from John when nine is the only complete answer about his character that we will ever get? As the blogger writes, Lucas is not even dignified with any sort of ending, never mind a noble one. He doesn't go out with a bang or a whimper. Meanwhile, the character of Bateman, absurdly, can only pretend to have Lucas' qualities, and pretend to have his emotions and behaviour, like some overgrown sock puppet.
The Lucas is John story is an enormous copout, not just for Lucas/RA/Harry fans, but also and here's the part I wish certain people would get into their thick skulls anyone who was remotely interested in and invested in the Lucas storyline As Spooks has always sold itself as a character ensemble show, it is logical to assume that people are following more than one characters storyline. When a main characters storyline makes about as much sense as inviting Darth Vadar with his deathstar to your wedding, can you blame fans generally, RA fans or otherwise, for getting miffed?
Which brings me to another point. One three star Amazon reviewer wrote a lukewarm but still positive review about Spooks Nine mentioning that in the past it had been claimed that the scripts highlighted the actors talents. In this case, the person wrote, it was a case of the actors salvaging the script. And on the Spooks forum another, more critical person, wrote that the situation with Spooks had always been one of "high hokum fun," as PF said, and really, when have most of the situations ever been strictly believable? No, what anchors people to Spooks is the characters the one constant is connecting with the characters whichever ones they may be.
The Spooks nine writers made the mistake of using ridiculous plotlines with a ridiculous character progression (and it worries me that they seemed to have not learnt from this in terms of s10) and for some fans this has completely shattered both faith in the show and the beliveability factor. Before there was a realness to the characters, they were knowable. With the Lucas storyline there is no believability if you watch the show in sequence, we are not graced with the knowable in how John operates as Lucas, and this leaves us with what? Writers who effectively can retcon any story they like without caring what the fans think because there is so much wankery over the whole thing. And ultimately this is my problem with those who attempt to shut people like me down when we point these things out, when they claim us all to be either elitist snobs or Armitage Army Crazies; these Spooks fans silence an entire section of their own fandom and at the same time, give the writers legitimacy; legitimacy to do the whole thing all over again, perhaps with an even more popular character, with just as little respect for invested viewers.
Storytelling matters, and shock value won't keep fans forever. Have some respect for the show, for its characters, and for your audience who watches it,who would like some answers and would like to not have their intelligence insulted. I'm not saying writers should write to please everyone. They shouldn't. But they do need to respect that the audience is invested in longrunning characters, characters who already have a backstory that has yet to be explained and who already have certain canon traits set out. Respect is not an exclusive right handed to a privelaged few in the audience, it should extend to everyone, regardless of if they are involved with the Armitage Army gang or not. Lucas fans have just as much right to expect a sensible character trajectory for Lucas as Ruth fans expect the same for Ruth, Harry fans for Harry. Their opinion as hardcore RA fans, my opinion as a general Spooks fan, is perfectly as valid as yours.
And on that note I leave you with a question. If it had been Harry with the double life or even Ruth how many people would still be lauding the existential genius of the writers?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-23 09:20 am (UTC)I certainly felt 'cheated'. It wasn't in the least the same as Connie turning out to be a mole or any other 'twists' we have had. This was character A suddenly turning out to be character B and the two had nothing in common. Character twists usually take the character in unexpected directions that can be explained with hindsight etc. but don't normally turn them into other people. It will, I think, lead to a lack of trust in the writers. If Lucas was actually John, why should we believe in Harry or Ruth - or anyone else? It was a step beyond the murky world of spying into the bizarre universe of a psychopath and as such it was not compatible with the 'normal' Spooks storyline.
It seems to have been a strange attempt to create a dramatic plot line and a 'different' exit for RA. For me, it didn't work. Also, I hated the Maya character - the way they used an intelligent woman as a cardboard prop.
My affection for Spooks is largely based on the way well developed characters deal with (but don't necessarily answer) moral questions thrown up by current political trends. Whether these characters turn out to be 'good' or 'bad' I expect them to remain themselves.
I will continue to watch (when I can) - to see where they go with Harry and Ruth, who are my 'favourites' anyway - but I feel wary and distanced.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-23 02:55 pm (UTC)It wasn't in the least the same as Connie turning out to be a mole or any other 'twists' we have had. This was character A suddenly turning out to be character B and the two had nothing in common. Character twists usually take the character in unexpected directions that can be explained with hindsight etc. but don't normally turn them into other people.
THIS. YES!!! If you're going to turn someone into something else at least have the seeds laid down early so we can have our aha! moment. There's no reason why Lucas couldn't have been the bad traitor... but they had to use the canon that was already there to build off. Maybe they need some lessons in fic writing 101 ;)
It will, I think, lead to a lack of trust in the writers. If Lucas was actually John, why should we believe in Harry or Ruth - or anyone else?
ARGGGH YES EXACTLY. Why should we believe or trust in any chatracter if they can all become unknowable and unexplained at the drop of a hat? Also, if those writers touch Ruth in s10 I will hate them forever and ever.
Whether these characters turn out to be 'good' or 'bad' I expect them to remain themselves.
Yes. It's what
I feel very, very wary too :/ I love Ruth to bits. They better play fair by her or I give up.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 09:08 am (UTC)I would have had no problems with Lucas turning out to be a traitor, a double agent, programmed by his torturers, anything like that. But John, the 'rotten apple', as he was portrayed by Vaughan and by himself, was someone who would not and could not have behaved the ways Lucas did for so long, so the plotline negated much of the previous seasons. I was never particularly 'invested' in Lucas but I did find his original character interesting and credible.
Yes, they need a course in fic writing:
Dear Script Writers,
Standing a story on its head is not the best way to deal with a sudden need to write out a character. Even if you've had enough explosions, for now, and the character desperately needs to run away to film The Hobbit, you can do better than that! Also, it is courteous to your audience to stay within whatever genre you have chosen. The John story was nothing to to with the world of spying!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 01:11 pm (UTC)Well Lucas was supposedly never real. He was a construct of the "realer" John's mind. But we never got to know the "real" John. We never could. He was made that way before he joined MI5 and everything after essentially is "all a dream." Exceptthe writers never had the capacity for this story with the character of Lucas. A man who has spent 8 years in prison without breaking, who looks out for his team, who is endlessly loyal, cannot at the same time be a callous murderer who stole somebody else's identity. It never ever could have worked.
Dear script writers,
Please do not ruin everything in s10 by doing a second Lucas is John. K thanks!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 01:13 pm (UTC)