
Scripted series · BBC One
Spooks
It's a fine line between safety and terror. Meet the rulers.
Who's in it
Cast
The principal ensemble across the run of the series.
The Nutevio profile
TV DNA
How Spooks actually feels to watch, measured on the traits our editors track across every series.
Signature profile
Spooks reads strongest on Character Depth, Bingeability and Serialized.
How fully written and psychologically layered the ensemble is.
How hard it is to stop after one episode.
How much each hour depends on the one before it.
How much the series is designed to affect you.
Visual ambition — scale, craft and set-piece filmmaking.
The sustained pressure the series keeps you under.
How often an episode ends on a hook you can't ignore.
The scale, internal logic and texture of the world.
How often the series is genuinely funny, by design.
The story
What it's about
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
The run
Seasons
10 seasons · 86 episodes.

Season 1 · Complete
Series 1
20026 episodes
8.4IMDbDefending their country, deceiving their friends - it's all in a day's work for the agents at MI5, the Security Service. The elite team tackle organised crime, espionage and terrorist activities, as well as the conflicts and power struggles back in the office. There's a car bomb in Liverpool, a siege in the Turkish embassy and the murder of a double agent, not to mention the difficulty of having to lie to loved ones about who you are and what you do.
Best episode · S01E02 Looking After Our Own

Season 2 · Complete
Series 2
200310 episodes
8.6IMDbThe second series gets off to an explosive start, picking up at the exact moment the first one finished. MI5 agent Tom's girlfriend Ellie and her young daughter are trapped inside a securely sealed house in which a bomb is about to explode, and there's no way out. There's also organised crime, terrorist activities, embassy sieges, weapons proliferation, subversives, anarchists and drug traffickers, not to mention the conflicts and power struggles the elite team has to deal with back in the office.
Best episode · S02E02 Nest of Angels

Season 3 · Complete
Series 3
200410 episodes
8.6IMDbIt is all change in the clandestine world of MI5 when new agent, Adam Carter, joins the team. Tom has been branded a traitor and has disappeared, while Harry is in hospital, seriously wounded, and there is dissension in the ranks. Danny and Zoe seek to clear Tom's name despite the fact he appears guilty and may even be dead. Will Tom, missing since shooting Harry, re-emerge to prove himself an innocent victim of a set-up? And will former MI6 agent Adam Carter, the new edition to the team, provide the drive and enthusiasm so apparently missing? If his track record and the reputation that precedes him are anything to go by, there are going to be plenty of fireworks.
Best episode · S03E10 The Suffering of Strangers

Season 4 · Complete
Series 4
200510 episodes
8.8IMDbThe group are still reeling after the shocking events at the end of the last series. Now rising star Zafar joins the team as they set out to become even stronger in their battle to safeguard the nation. When London comes under terrorist attack Adam is forced to make an impossible decision, Harry must deal with blackmail threats from an old flame, and Fiona faces her own demons when she goes undercover in Syria.
Best episode · S04E02 The Special (2)

Season 5 · Complete
Series 5
200610 episodes
8.8IMDbSeries 5 begins with Britain left reeling after a series of terrorist attacks. Our team believe the attacks cloak a conspiracy to destroy democracy and turn Britain into a 'police state'. Can the team protect the democratic way of life? Zafar goes undercover and infiltrates a home-grown Islamic terror group who are planning a massive attack against London. There could also be serious repercussions for Ruth when she finds out the deaths of seven terrorist suspects in a prison fire were in fact staged by British military intelligence.
Best episode · S05E08 Agenda

Season 6 · Complete
Series 6
200710 episodes
8.8IMDbAdam and Ros recover to find London facing an even greater threat. While attempting to thwart an attack that could jeopardise a historic peace accord between Britain and Iran, the team unwittingly unleash a deadly killer. But with a virus that mimics the pneumonic plague, there can be no negotiation. And when Zaf is kidnapped by armed mercenaries, the team realises that in a game of the highest stakes they hold none of the cards. As the stuff of nightmares becomes increasingly real, London faces total devastation.
Best episode · S06E07 The Broadcast

Season 7 · Complete
Series 7
20088 episodes
9.5IMDbSeries seven sees officer Lucas North joining MI5. Having spent the past eight years in a Russian prison, Lucas North is welcomed back by MI5 supremo and old friend Harry Pearce, who was instrumental in finally securing his release.
Best episode · S07E07 The Mole

Season 8 · Complete
Series 8
20098 episodes
9.4IMDbThe eighth action-packed series finds the team in a race against time to rescue Harry, who has been kidnapped by rogue Russian agents. But as they dig deeper into his disappearance, they find a trail that leads to Iraq, and a conspiracy that involves the CIA, MI6 and some missing weapons-grade uranium. Could Harry know where it is? And how is former team member Ruth Evershed, recently returned to the security of MI5 having fled her new life in Cyprus, connected to it all?
Best episode · S08E06 Bankruptcy

Season 9 · Complete
Series 9
20108 episodes
9.3IMDbIt’s a new world for the Spooks team: Ros’s death and a new coalition parliament herald in an era of re-assessment of the role of Britain, MI5 and even the life of a Spook. Faced with Ros’s barely attended funeral, the team come to question what a person sacrifices when they become a spy, provoking Harry to make an unexpected offer to another member of the Team. Further challenges await Harry in the form of the new Government and colourful new Home Secretary, William Towers. Working for a government doing whatever it takes to stop the country from sinking into historic economic disaster in their first year in office, Harry’s instincts are challenged as he is forced to bend to the will of those more powerful. There are some new faces on the Grid. Beth Bailey – an ex-mercenary who wants to hang up her boots in Iraq and find a more meaningful existence, defending the realm. Desperate to impress, she leaves some vital details about her past off her application form. Then there’s Dimitri Levendis: ex-SBS (Special Boat Service) who proves how capable and heroic he is in an impossible situation.
Best episode · S09E04 Chinese Prize

Season 10 · Complete
Series 10
20116 episodes
9.5IMDbIn the tenth and final series, secrets tumble out when former foes of Harry Pearce during the Cold War fly into London to negotiate a partnership between Russia and the UK.
Best episode · S10E06 Deportation
Where the series peaks
Best Episodes
The hours that define the show, ranked by audience response and editorial signal.

S02E02
Nest of Angels
A fellow agent informs Tom that young boys and men from a mosque in Birmingham are being trained as suicide bombers. They need an undercover spook, but who should or can go?
- Directed by Bharat Nalluri
- Written by Howard Brenton

S03E10
The Suffering of Strangers
It's Fiona's birthday, and she's not going to forget it! While inspecting a possible Islamic terrorist safe house, they are kidnapped. With the threat of his son's, his wife's and Danny's life, Adam must choose who won't live to see another day, Fiona or Danny? The prime minister's life is in danger. Will MI5 give into the kidnappers demands? But then to everybody's surprise... Danny makes the ultimate sacrifice.
- Directed by Alrick Riley
- Written by Ben Richards

S02E10
Smoke and Mirrors
Tom ignores Harry's demands to end his relationship with CIA officer Christine Dale. Christine hands Tom a secure communication which she has accidentally received from high up in the CIA. It says that an American assassin has come to the UK for a hit and that the CIA are going to take him out, without informing Five or any of the security services. Tom can't tell Harry what he knows so enlists Danny and Zoe to help him. However, things start to go wrong and tonight's episode is all 'Smoke and Mirrors'. Will the truth be uncovered before something goes terribly wrong? Has Tom gone bad?
- Directed by Sam Miller
- Written by Howard Brenton

S01E02
Looking After Our Own
Tom and Helen must go undercover and befriend the wife of a suspected hardcore racist in order to prevent a racewar. Meanwhile Zoe and Tessa learn that a boatload of refugees is due to dock at Dover in the next few days. Things worsen when the operatives realise the two things may be connected and their covers may be blown.
- Directed by Bharat Nalluri
- Written by David Wolstencroft

S03E01
Project Friendly Fire
Tom Quinn has disappeared after shooting his boss Harry Pearce. He also stands accused of assassinating the Chief of Defence Staff. Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Oliver Mace uses this a pretext to launch a punitive investigation of MI5. Zoe, Danny and the team must prove Tom innocent and save the service from government takeover.
- Directed by Jonny Campbell
- Written by Howard Brenton

S01E06
The Lesser of Two Evils
Patrick McCann, an IRA leader claims to have information about a nuclear attack on the UK mainland, can MI5 trust the IRA enough to give them what they want in return; 36 hours free of surveillance, free to do whatever they wish?
- Directed by Andy Wilson
- Written by David Wolstencroft, Howard Brenton
Recently aired
Latest Episodes

S10E06
Deportation
- Directed by Bharat Nalluri
- Written by Jonathan Brackley, Sam Vincent




S10E02
Stolen Laptop
- Directed by Alrick Riley
- Written by Jonathan Brackley, Sam Vincent

S10E01
Garden Leave
- Directed by Alrick Riley
- Written by Jonathan Brackley, Sam Vincent
Behind the series
Created by
Showrunners, creators, executive producers and the writers who set the voice of the series.

David Wolstencroft
Showrunner

Gareth Neame
Executive producer

Simon Crawford Collins
Executive producer
- Photo unavailable
Stephen Garrett
Executive producer

Jane Featherstone
Executive producer
- Photo unavailable
Christian Spurrier
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Russell Lewis
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Rupert Walters
Writer
- Photo unavailable
James Moran
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Raymond Khoury
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Sean Cook
Writer

Jonathan Brackley
Writer

Ben Richards
Writer

Sam Vincent
Writer
- Photo unavailable
James Dormer
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Simon Mirren
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Zinnie Harris
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Howard Brenton
Writer

Neil Cross
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Steve Bailie
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Oliver Brown
Writer

Matthew Graham
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Julian Simpson
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Raymond Khoury
Writer

David Farr
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Richard McBrien
Writer

Dennis Kelly
Writer
- Photo unavailable
Anthony Neilson
Writer
- Photo unavailable
George Tiffin
Writer
The craft
Key Crew
Directing, writing, production, camera, music and editing.
Executive production
- Gareth NeameExecutive Producer
- Simon Crawford CollinsExecutive Producer
- Stephen GarrettExecutive Producer
- Jane FeatherstoneExecutive Producer
Writing
- Christian SpurrierWriter
- Russell LewisWriter
- Rupert WaltersWriter
- James MoranWriter
- David WolstencroftWriter
- Raymond KhouryWriter
Direction
- Sam MillerDirector
- Julian HolmesDirector
- Bharat NalluriDirector
- Colm McCarthyDirector
- Jonny CampbellDirector
- Andy HayDirector
Cinematography
- Jake PolonskyDirector of Photography
- Nic MorrisDirector of Photography
- Sean BobbittDirector of Photography
- Balazs BolygoDirector of Photography
- James WellandDirector of Photography
- Donal GilliganDirector of Photography
Where to watch
Streaming
Availability verified against regional listings.
- Amazon Prime VideoStreaming
- Amazon VideoBuy
- Peacock PremiumStreaming
- PhiloStreaming
- Britbox Apple TV Channel Streaming
- BritBoxStreaming
- BritBox Amazon ChannelStreaming
- Amazon Prime Video with AdsStreaming
- Peacock Premium PlusStreaming
If you liked this
Similar Series
Series that share this one's texture, not just its genre tags.
Where to go from here
Watch Next
Our editors' suggestion for the show you should start tonight — and why.
Never stop watching
Related Collections
No related collections yet
This title isn't in a published Nutevio collection yet. It will appear here automatically as soon as it is.
Join the conversation


































































