Spies we still love

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Notes on a panel discussion I watched last year at the Worldcon Science Fiction Convention in London. - Sunday 17th August 2015 A very entertaining and well thought out panel discussing the evolution of spy-drama from the golden age of the 1960's to the darker realism of modern espionage stories. Many 1960's spy shows on TV were obviously parodies of the James Bond movie franchise. The Man From UNCLE, Get Smart, etc., were very tongue in cheek, with absurd gadgets and often a high death toll around the heroes. After John Le Carre's ground-breaking realistic spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Solder Spy and the BBC TV adaptation of it, spy stories grew darker and more credible. It had been done before; Len Deighton's Harry Palmer series was intended to deglamorize the world of international espionage too. Much of the discussion listed favorites including The Scarecrow & Mrs King, The Avengers (TV version), Mission Impossible, Modesty Blaise, The Saint (not strictly a spy series), Dangerman, and to much applause, Dangermouse. I Spy was singled out for praise for a greater sense of plausibility and presenting one of TV's earliest long running roles for a black actor, (Bill Cosby). Other realistic spy dramas referenced included The Sandbaggers and Spooks. I threw in a mention of The Americans, which has a strong role reversal plot involving leading roles for a family of KGB agents at large in the US at the height of Reagan's presidency, coming dangerously close to discovering the secrets behind the Strategic Defense Initiative. The Bourne Movie trilogy was mentioned, along with 24, and Person Of Interest, with an unusual look at electronic surveillance in the US. Spy drama veers from the caper movie approach to the deadly serious. There is Johnny English and Austen Powers at one end of the Spectrum, and Spooks at the other. There is a strong association with spies as assassins rather than information gatherers. Mr & Mrs Smith and True Lies both feature assassins who try to hide their real jobs from their spouses with humorously disastrous consequences. Another common angle is the incompetent reluctant spy who somehow cracks the case anyway; he has been with us from Maxwell Smart but perhaps best presented in Chuck, where a computer technician unwittingly becomes a superspy though Chuck uses his sense of humanity and genuine technology skills to show that he is not as stupid as often seen too. Other spies mentioned but not touched on perhaps enough (to save the panel talking for over ten hours) included Callan, Edge Of Darkness, Agents Of SHIELD, Torchwood, The Guardians (of which I know nothing), and in literary science fiction, The Laundry stories of Charles Stross. There were references to junior spies, including the Alex Rider stories by Anthony Horowitz. I was going to mention Joe 90 at this point - a child often sent by his own father on missions James Bond would consider too dangerous and refuse to go on, but I had already contributed to the discussion and many others in the audience also had great input to share. There was a sense that serious spy stories are still often over-dependent on tech and gadgetry. A major cliché of such stories is the absurd ease with which unauthorized data sticks can be used to hijack all the data in a computer. Modern companies and spy agencies would soon lock down to prevent such a move. One panelist noted that she is spied on by her local supermarket to the point at which if she buys wine, the supermarket sends her messages advising her what else to buy for the party it assumes she is preparing for. It is not just terrorists and foreign agents who need to fear being spied on it seems. Nicholas Whyte, the event moderator, works in London and admits to knowing genuine spies, though he naturally refrained from sharing more on this intriguing teaser, The other panelists were Elizabeth Bear, Tim Phipps, Gillian Redfearn, and Stefanie Zurek. Arthur Chappell - Licensed to .... well, not licensed for anything actually.