MI-5 (TV Series) Celebrity (2004) User Reviews

Offbeat, Original, Relevant.

[kayaker36 · 8/10 · 28 July 2009]

This episode just aired on a local Public Broadcasting System channel in the New York area.

The plot is nothing to write home about--none of them are on this series--but a truly believable character is created: "Riff", the aging rocker, a cross between Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton--who did in reality suffer the loss of a child.

In the show's opening scene, Riff is knighted by the Queen in the ancient ceremony of having "the royal bread knife" (a quote from the senior MI-5 agent) placed on his shoulders. But things go downhill for him soon after that. We sympathize with Riff, unlikeable as he often is, right to the episode's bloody coda. Even as he ends his own life, he's cool, man.

The episode contains quite a lot of drug taking, I mean hard drugs, even by a member of law enforcement, along with smoking and drinking of alcohol. **None** of this could ever be shown on American network television but it was integral to the story here.

As for the 'B' plot, I could not figure out what was actually supposed to have happened that had to be hushed up. Was the Member of Parliament telling the whole truth? Was he shading the truth, leaving things out? Fortunately, little running time is spent on this stunted story. Best thing about it: the real newsreader at the very end. Nice to hear an old-fashioned cut glass English voice again.

Oh dear, the Riff and Bea Episode .

[jmupton2003 · 5/10 · 27 July 2008]

Oh dear, the Riff and Bea Episode….

Every great television series has one really duff episode that is so spectacularly naff that you wonder watching it if the creative and production staff left the apprentice trainee in charge of creating one episode whilst they popped down the pub.

It took Spooks until episode eight of series three before they suddenly took fans by surprise by delivering this utter clunker of a story. A burnt out rock star and his equally drugged up missus get mixed up in a silly story of a kidnapped baby which for MI5 get lumbered with as it's 'politically convenient', this in a major nod to the celebrity culture that we seem to be constantly bombarded with these days.

Even poor old Harry Pearce looks dumbfounded at the whole thing pretty much throughout although whether this is because the script called for it or it was just actor Peter Firth's opinion on the lousy storyline is not quite clear.

There are a couple of good bits though, the return of the deliciously slimy Oliver Mace as the head of the JIC and a nice little 'B' story involving a Member of Parliament and his spectacular fall from grace that in a typical bit of burying bad news is hidden from public view behind the silly kidnap story.

It would have been better if the story of the disgraced MP was given prominence and the vast majority of the terrible Riff and Bea storyline ditched.

Still I suppose every great series has to have its bad moments

Celebrity

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 8 December 2019]

Riff (Andy Serkis) is a successful grunge rock star who has been knighted by the Queen. He and his wife celebrate by throwing a wild party where their infant son gets kidnapped.

MI5 are involved even though it is a kidnapping case. Downing Street insists on it.

There is also a case of a politician, a junior minister who has got involved with a woman who has subsequently died.

It does not take long to figure that the baby kidnapping is an inside job. The ending is both cynical and heartbreaking. Poor Riff.

The episode might have fared better if Serkis was given better rock songs to sing.

The "Timelash" of Spooks

[aspectacleofmyself · 1/10 · 2 September 2017]

An episode so unbelievably awful you can't help but think it was a parody. This episode saw the show, which had been tottering somewhat over the last few episodes, jumped the shark so high the shark could have been on the moon. So began the slow and sad decline into irrelevance.

Borderline entertaining

[grantss · 5/10 · 14 December 2022]

A rock star's baby is kidnapped. The rock star has political power and insists that MI-5 handle the case, rather than the police. The team investigate and find themselves in a world of decadence and debauchery. Adam's wife Fiona goes undercover, befriending the rock star's wife.

An episode that is partly entertaining, part shlock. The plot is implausible, MI-5 being called in to handle a kidnapping. Some of the developments are quite intriguing though.

A major negative is the characters and how they're played. Quite cartoonish and stereotypical, the rock star as a tortured artist doing extreme, weird things, the model wife as drug fiend. Throw in an incredibly hammy performance by Andy Serkis as the rock star and his character is incredibly annoying.

DISGUSTING WHO WROTE THIS ONE

[lopezpatricia-06139 · 1/10 · 2 November 2020]

Foul parents taking coke and drinking, should not be able to keep a dog much less a child. And as if mi5 is going to get involved with a grunge star's business and then cover up the story in the headlines to protect the scumbags. As these people are national treasures. Spooks is going downhill rapidly. Not realistic at all.