I have to admit that at first I was a bit disappointed. Old men talking a lot about spying, low budget sets, slow pace, no added drama. I thought it was going to be boring. And perhaps, if I were action minded, it would have been. Instead the series drew me in not by playing my emotional chords, not by special effects and not by adding superfluous problems to the story to give it extra oomph, but by presenting the story, step by step, as the rather cerebral character played by Alec Guinness peels the layers of the onion.
So take what I told you as a warning. The series is excellent, but you will have to think about what everybody means when they say something, about why sometimes they just ask a lot of questions without seeming to be interested in the answers, which are not coming anyway and about how the game of cat and mouse is played.
Bottom line: great, but slow paced spy thriller, aimed at the intellectual in you. It all involves the hunt for a mole in the highest ranks of MI6 during the Cold War, the villain mastermind being the uncredited Patrick Stewart as Karla, with Alec Guinness being its British opponent. It is rather low budget, and feels like a BBC play. Take your time and enjoy the show.
So take what I told you as a warning. The series is excellent, but you will have to think about what everybody means when they say something, about why sometimes they just ask a lot of questions without seeming to be interested in the answers, which are not coming anyway and about how the game of cat and mouse is played.
Bottom line: great, but slow paced spy thriller, aimed at the intellectual in you. It all involves the hunt for a mole in the highest ranks of MI6 during the Cold War, the villain mastermind being the uncredited Patrick Stewart as Karla, with Alec Guinness being its British opponent. It is rather low budget, and feels like a BBC play. Take your time and enjoy the show.