Arterton power-walks stylishly through Tom Bradby’s slick crime caper that takes itself so seriously even the saucy stuff is solemn. Slow Horses this is not
Another week, another glossy espionage drama in which agitated politicos scour the corridors of power in search of something, anything, to differentiate the thing from its predecessors. But what? ITV’s Secret Service rummages through its faux-leather briefcase for fresh ideas. Not the easiest of tasks, given the number of cliches that swirl around the genre’s cufflinks. But God loves a trier. And Secret Service is nothing if not tenacious.
Might a protagonist who juggles family life with a secret job as an MI6 agent count as a USP, it wonders, nodding at Kate Henderson (Gemma Arterton) and her tousled action-bob. No? How about a plot that divides itself between Whitehall and a more exotic, if no less treacherous, location such as, say, Malta? Or many scenes in which actors in wool-blend car coats stride purposefully past the SIS building while shouting things like: “You’re the bloody home secretary!” and: “Tell that to the prime minister!”
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