MI-5

Do you believe in love at first sight? You won't need something like that in this case. MI5 is not a series built on the effect, fast action, and super cool characters and catchphrases. You have to give it a chance to uncover the world of its characters, and if you prefer a realistic plot, a well-thought-out story, and unsentimental, sometimes cynical conclusions of individual episodes and storylines that sometimes lead to ugly ends and depict the world of secret services without cheap polish, pathos, and patriotic or family nonsense, then MI5 will gradually captivate you. The series has been labeled as a second coming of The Professionals, as both series aired one after the other on TV, but that fact actually highlights how fundamentally different they are. I grew up with The Professionals and have a strong nostalgic connection to the series, but I have to say that MI5 is better and made me lower my rating of The Professionals. Additionally, there is an interesting effect here that with each episode, the quality tends to increase, which is a remarkable thing in the world of TV series production. The series portrays secret service agents as fallible beings who are often driven by rather mundane motivations, such as the prospect of promotion, financial security, narcissism, stubbornness, and sometimes higher justice does not win, but dirty politics, higher interests, or sloppiness do. After the episode with the chemical attack in the center of London, I was forced to give the series an extra star, and I don't exclude the idea that the series will eventually deceive me into giving it the highest rating. Overall impression: 60%. Update, January 4, 2014: MI5 did not escape the usual illness of long-lasting series after all, namely a decline in quality, especially when it comes to the level of the script of individual episodes. If you have ten seasons, you can't avoid the exhaustion of scriptwriting invention. From about the halfway point of the series, more and more convoluted plot twists and incompleteness of individual ideas appeared. In retrospect, the 2nd-4th seasons made the biggest impression on me, and from the 6th season onwards, I do not recommend continuing to watch... In the end, my perseverance cost the series one star. (05/16/2012)