Did you ever have something you thought was pretty interesting happen to you, but then when you try to explain it to someone else, they kind of half listen and don’t come close to getting what you are saying, and you realize part way through that it really isn’t that interesting unless you are the person it happened to? Do you know what bloggers do when they experience this?
They blog it! Somebody out there’s gonna relate!
OK, so a few years ago, I came across a BBC TV series that I really liked for a number of reasons. In the US it is called MI-5 and it is about, well, MI-5. It has a bit of a LaCarre-esque feel to it (and they make occasional references to Smiley’s people) and is in other ways a bit quirky. One of the novel things this show does is to kill off or otherwise dispose of key characters, so when that nailbiter is in progress you really can’t assume things are going to work out. Over ten seasons I think they must have wiped out about 10 or 12 characters. But I digress.
After watching several seasons of this show, I came to believe that the pilot episode involved a woman with a child, who in turn had a stuffed bunny, and there was a husband and terrorists and the terrorists blew up a soccer stadium during a game. That is just the outline for the first part of an episode of MI-5 that I though was either the opening episode or a pre-series pilot.
But then when I went to look for that pilot at a later time, it wasn’t there. I scanned the Wikipedia list of episodes, I scanned the actual episodes on Netflix, and eventualy I even searched google with search phrases like:
MI-5 BBC British spy soccer stadium explosion terrorist bunny
or
MI-5 Soccer Stadium Bomb explodes child stuffed bunny soccer
and so on…
Then I gave up. Then a few months later I thought about it again and looked again but it still was not there. This episode or pilot seemed to have been pulled from existence. I remembered there having been a controversial episode that they considered not showing because it mirrored a real life terrorist event, by coincidence, and I checked that out thinking maybe the episode really was pulled, but that wasn’t it either.
Then, the other day, I tried something different. First I entered into the Internet Movie Database the search terms “soccer stadium bomb explosion bunny” and got nothing. That is because the IMDB search engine kinda sucks. So, I went to Google, and entered something like “IMDB soccer stadium bomb explosion bunny” and that instantly popped up a movie called Incendiary. It was on Netflix on demand, so I watched the beginning of it.
Slowly over time the movie started to look more and more familiar. Eventually, there was a soccer game. And a bunny. And an explosion. This was the thing I thought was the MI-5 episode or pilot, but in fact it was just a movie I had seen.
Now, if you ask anyone who knows me, you’ll learn that I have a good memory. The chance that I would watch a movie then get it confused with a TV show like this is almost zero. My wife is certain that I have a photographic memory based on my ability to recall things visually, but I’m not sure that is a good description for what I do. But this sort of mistake is kind of unheard of.
But there is an explanation, and it is kind of interseting, which it damn well better be after all this lead up. Two things caused me to become confused and to make this link.
1) One of the parts in Incendiary happens to be played by Matthew Macfadyen, and he is the star of the first several episodes of MI-5 (until … well, never mind that).
2) I watched this movie back around the time I had that accident, and was languishing on very good pain killers.
Stoned and confused. That’s what happened.
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
As a Brit, I’m a huge fan of MI-5 (who a CNN newscaster would probably call M-15 if this week is anything to go by, she certainly didn’t seem to be aware that MI-6 wasn’t pronounced “Emm Sixteen”) specifically because they’re NOT afraid to kill off principle characters … and also because you REALLY have to pay attention to what’s going on, unlike most American TV shows that seem to squeeze about 5 minutes of plot into an hour long show and then have recaps after every ad break in case you were distracted by a shiny object more than 30 seconds ago.
It was sort of like Game of Thrones as a TV show, that is, before Game of Thrones became a TV show.
Oh, incidentally, it looks like Netflix have FINALLY added the tenth season.
If you like MI-5, I’d also recommend “Waking the Dead”, which is sort of like a British version of CSI, ie. far less lab rats suspiciously waving guns around (seriously? The fuck is that about?) and you need to not only remember what happened before the last ad break, you might even need to remember what happened all the way back in the last episode.
I love Spooks (the UK name of it – I watched it on BBC Canada at first and then on netflix).
My favorite thing about it is that they’re downright fearless in how they write situation. They write what they need to get the effect they want, and do whatever’s necessary to get there: Main character’s gotta die? Okay. We need to kill a kid? Sure. We need to portray [a certain beloved character] who most people think of as a charming mentor as a manipulative asshole in a way that will probably change how everyone in the audience sees [the character]? Will do.
I’m sure if they tried that sort of writing elsewhere, you’d get a Hunger Games-level response from the public.
Also: Netflix has added season 10?! Damn. There goes any chance of me getting work done this weekend…
And when my friend, who runs a medical marijuana dispensary in California, visits me again with a bagful of strawberry Kush and tries to get me to try it AGAIN (honestly… peer pressure, in our 40s?), I will point her at this article as the example of why I don’t have any intention of getting stoned on purpose, thank you.
Question: Is season 10 the last season ever?
Yes, I’ve seen Waking the dead. It is quite good. They don’t kill off the main characterless as much though!
I don’t know if season 10 is the last ever, the Wikipedia seems to suggest it ends on a cliffhanger, so that would suggest not.
Season 10 was only shown in the UK last year, so it’s not like we’re *that* far behind.
Just finished season 10, and nope, it doesn’t look like it’s the last season.
I’m not saying any more than that 🙂