Was it time for Spooks to finish?

[nothingisasitseems]

The official line is that part way through Series 10 Kudos felt the programme might be heading towards the end of its shelf life and put it to the BBC that this be the last Series. The BBC agreed.

I feel it is possible that Kudos was pushed into this. With cutbacks and the fact that this Season had been reduced to 6 episdoes they perhaps thought cancellation was coming anyway and decided to bite the bullet.

In his excellent Five Live interview Nitrus made the pertinent point that it was perhaps better to go out while the show was still riding high and not eventually fade away with a whimper.

How do you know know though what the next Seaon will bring? I actually believed that Season 8 would be the last and S9 was so long being confirmed that both it and S10 were a bonus.

Some may point to the viewing figures for S10 and suggest that interest was waning but I believe these are deceptive. The BBC threw Spooks to the wolves by scheduling it against the immensely popular Downton Abbey. At any peak viewing time there will be a significant number of casual viewers and if Spooks had been say on a Monday or Thursday then while it is, of course, hypothetical I firmly believe the viewing figures would have been 1m+ higher and similar to S9.

There was quite an interesting Grid and the characters of Erin and Calum could have been developed. I was hoping for some of this in S10 but I suppose with it being the final Series and only six episodes long there wasn't time for this.

Although I loved Dimitri and think highly of Max Brown I'm not 100% convinced the Spooks role was a suitable one to best showcase his talent.

There was probably room for one more member albeit a "backroom" one and I presume if it was to continue Ruth would not have been written out.

But I definitely feel there was the scope for another two Seasons.