TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Spy series have become a staple of the modern TV landscape. Two big new ones are closing out the year - the Netflix series "Black Doves" and Paramount+'s "The Agency," a reworking of the acclaimed French series "The Bureau." Our critic-at-large John Powers says that one of them is fast, and one is deliberate, but both will keep you hooked.
JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Ever since I saw my first James Bond movie as a kid, I've had a thing for spy stories. They always draw me in, be they nuanced like John le Carre, witty like "Slow Horses" or potboiling like "Homeland." I love their labyrinthine plots, their bubbling menace, their deep-dish paranoia. Never trust what you see on the surface. I'm happy to report that the year is ending with two good new spy series, "Black Doves" on Netflix and "The Agency" on Paramount+. They make an interesting pair, for while both are compelling and feature top-drawer talent, each takes a radically different approach to the espionage genre. Where one flashes with pop energy, the other is a slow burn.
Set in London, the mecca of spy stories, "Black Doves" stars Kara Knightley as Helen Webb, the wife of Britain's defense minister who secretly works for the Black Doves, a private espionage firm that sells information to the highest bidder. When her lover is murdered, Helen vows revenge, much to the disapproval of her boss, Reed. That's Sarah Lancashire of "Happy Valley" fame. To keep her safe, Reed enlists Helen's dear friend Sam Young, a gay contract killer played by Ben Whishaw. Soon Helen and Sam are sucked into a bloody maelstrom that touches everyone from the Chinese embassy and the CIA to No. 10 Downing Street and the world's most powerful criminal gang.
Telling a complete story in an admirably brief six episodes, the show starts fast and just keeps coming - jokes and plot twists and fight scenes and flashbacks. Heck, even Tracey Ullman turns up. "Black Doves" was created by Joe Barton, who did "Giri/Haji," an exhilatingly original Netflix series about a Tokyo cop in London. While this new show is more conventional, you can feel Barton's sensibility in its deft shifting from violence to comedy to surprisingly deep emotion. Even the villains have more dimension than you'd expect. Of course, it's the heroes who hold us, especially since Knightley and Whishaw play off each other with such ease. Here, for example, Sam and Helen are driving to kill one of the men who murdered her lover. And she thinks he's acting a bit odd.
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BEN WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) These webs we weave - they are tangled. Are they not?
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: (As Helen Webb) Have you been drinking?
WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) What?
KNIGHTLEY: (As Helen Webb) Your breath smells of wine.
WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) I was at dinner.
KNIGHTLEY: (As Helen Webb) Are you pissed?
WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) I think that I can have three glasses of sauvignon blanc and still do my job. Thank you.
KNIGHTLEY: (As Helen Webb) Was it three glasses, though?
WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) Four - five and a line of what I thought was cocaine but I'm starting to suspect may have been ketamine.
KNIGHTLEY: (As Helen Webb) Oh, great, cool. So a bottle of wine and some horse tranquilizer - anything else? Did you shoot up under a bridge on your way here?
WHISHAW: (As Sam Young) Listen. I have just left a very enjoyable evening with some old friends to come and murder a hired contract killer for you. So let's tone down the judgment a tad, shall we?
POWERS: Helen and Sam were so enjoyable in such scenes and their friendship so palpable that it's easy to lose sight of the immorality of what they do, especially as both are capable of profound love and generosity.
The human cost of spying is less breezy in "The Agency," whose providence could hardly be finer. It's an American transposition of maybe the best spy show of all time, the French series "The Bureau." Based in a CIA outpost in London and dealing with issues torn from our headlines, it centers on the spies who live for years in foreign lands under fake identities and the desk jockey agents who run them.
Ambiguously handsome Michael Fassbender stars as the crack agent known as Martian. As the series begins, he's suddenly called back to London from Addis Ababa, forcing him to leave behind his Ethiopian lover, Sami. That's Jodie Turner-Smith. He tells his superiors - played by the likes of Jeffrey Wright, Katherine Waterston and Richard Gere - that he and Sami are over, but he's actually still in love with her. In the spy world, this lie is profoundly compromising, and it sets in motion all manner of trouble. You see; not only is he training a young woman agent, played by Saura Lightfoot-Leon, for an undercover job in Tehran. He's helping endangered assets in Ukraine.
If "Black Doves" gallops forward like a racehorse, "The Agency" is quieter and more precise, like dressage. Although I've only been able to preview the first few episodes, the show closely follows "The Bureau's" template. It carefully lays out the agency's daily life, with its strong personalities, office politics and murky missions. Then it starts tightening the screws of suspense. Like most spy stories, "The Agency" taps into our modern obsession with identity. As Martian tries to juggle his romantic passion and his sworn duty, the show offers a heightened version of something universal - the gap between our public selves that act in the world and who we feel we really are inside.
For all their differences, "Black Doves" and "The Agency" address the same fundamental questions. Can you be a spy and still keep your humanity? At what point does your mask become your actual face? And at what point, if any, do you start saying no?
GROSS: John Powers reviewed "Black Doves" and "The Agency." If you'd like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed, like this week's interview with the great blues musician Jerron Paxton, who brought and played his instruments, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations for what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org/freshair.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALBERTO IGLESIAS' "COMANDANTE I (FROM 'COMANDANTE')")
GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Anne Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALBERTO IGLESIAS' "COMANDANTE I (FROM 'COMANDANTE')") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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