Spooks: Code 9 (previously trailed as Rogue Spooks and then Spooks: Liberty)

In other TV drama news, Rogue Spooks which was renamed during development to Spooks: Liberty and has finally been re-announced as Spooks: Code 9 and may still be abbreviated down to Code 9 when it airs on BBC Three given the uncertain crossover with the main Spooks series.

The scenario is that a nuclear explosion in London causes the country’s power base to shift north. MI5 is decimated, and rapidly restructures, establishing field offices across the UK, fast tracking new trainee officers into action.

Spooks creator David Wolstencroft (a reasonable novelist too) along with a host of writers have created six new recruits who end up working in Field Office 19.

Led by experienced spook Hannah (Joanne Froggatt, Life On Mars), the rookie team is made up of

• Charlie (Liam Boyle, Drop Dead Gorgeous), a mathematician and genius problem-solver;
• Rachel (Ruta Gedmintas, The Tudors), an ex-police officer with ambitions to be a leader;
• Jez (Heshima Thompson, Prime Suspect: The Final Act), a new breed of spook altogether – a former criminal gone straight;
• Vik (Christopher Simpson, Brick Lane) chose MI5 over a career in his family’s business;
• Rob (Andrew Knott, The History Boys) was a junior doctor at the time of the bomb;
• Kylie (Georgia Moffett, Doctor Who) a psychology student, just back from her gap year.

Spooks: Code 9 follows on from recent drama The Last Enemy’s view of a changed political environment. Executive Producer Karen Wilson explains the situation in 2013:

“Nearly one year on from the bomb, Britain is starting to get back to something resembling normality. But, under the surface, there have been massive changes: terror warnings and security checkpoints are regular features of everyday life, and there’s a flourishing black market in everything from ID cards to anti-radiation drugs.”

The series is still filming with no firm transmission date other than “later this year” on BBC Three. Rather than hiring out the bigger-than-they-needed-to-be MI5 offices at Palace Barracks Holywood, they’ve instead been filming in the old West Yorkshire Police HQ in The Tyrls, Bradford.