Most friends of mine are no strangers to my frantic obsession over the BBC series [spooks]. It focuses around the actions of the MI5, the British department of homeland security, and it does so in a truly spectacular way. It makes you wonder about the truthfullness of the headlines you see every day, about the threats that loom over our society that are diverted by people who, officialy, don't even exist. The writers of the show are clearly masterminds and also merciless; they won't hesitate to kill off a major character, so you're at the edge of your seat every time some agents are in a spot of bother. It's intelligent, realistic and thrilling.

Also, it is pleasantly devoid of badasses. You know your standard American heroes, the kind that utters banal oneliners in a gruff voice before repainting the room in spinal fluid? Won't find those douchebags here. Actually, the episode where one of our beloved spooks first kills a man ends with the poor bastard crying and splashing water in his face, then looking up, with enormous effort, at his own image in the mirror, which he hardly can bear seeing. This is the kind of killers I like, because that's a human response.
The series had it's height at season four, but the aftermath of the writers' constant and relentless slaughtering required a lot of new characters to fill them up, and I've never felt the same amount of caring for Adam Carter than I've done for Mr Darcy - err sorry - Tom Quinn.

But alas, after seven seasons, [spooks] ended. Don't know how yet, but presumably everyone fucking dies, if it's up to the writers.

AND THEN came the spin-off series [spooks]: Code 9. Suddenly MI5 consists solely of extremely pretty people who had their voice change barely two weeks ago. I don't know how they find the time to protect the nation in their busy schedule of sexual tension, partying and drinking, if you know what I'm saying. The teaser attempts to justify this by saying 'Terrorists are getting younger, so you need younger infiltrants'. This might make sense if the entire fucking team wasn't made up out of people who should be in college instead of national security. It's just hard to take serious.
Also, apparently these people are too young to show some fucking professionalism.

'Where the hell is Charlie?'
'Forget about Charlie, we need to find out whose behind this!'

You couldn't get away with a cliched line like this in the original [spooks], they'd have you hunted down by an SAS team and PUT TO JUSTICE. Allow me to show two other examples.

'Are you sure the bomb is real?'
'Yeah 't looks pretty fucking real from where I'm standing.'

' Pull a stunt like that again, and I'll break your fucking windpipe.'

This poor kid obviously can't handle the pressure and goes of cursing and threatening innocent bystanders instead of doing what he's getting fucking paid for. In the original [spooks] he'd be thrown out of the team for being a liability.
Also, if you're looking for the thrill of a fake identity with completely artificial ins and outs, you won't find it here.

Code 9 is only similar to [spooks] in name. You see [spooks] is about miserable people who dedicate their entire social life to a vast network commited to protecting Britain in the most subtle and undetectable way. Code 9 is about a gang of attractive youngsters who sit in some attic diverting all the major threats to humanity by sheer attractiveness. Goodbye, my dear friend realism, you will be sorely missed.

I know all these measures were taken to appeal to a younger audience, but I AM the younger audience and I just dedicated an entire journal to grinding it in the dirt. Which is exactly what it deserves, for taking the name of a series whose major selling points were deceit and subtlety and turning it into a unintelligent, badass-fest full of pretty people who swear a lot.