The grey world of spyence fiction

While they always end up getting way too silly if they run for too long, I do have a very slight obsession with books, movies and TV shows that splice the kind of hard-nosed spy dramas of John le Carré with some bullshit science fiction and try to make it work.

Things like the Counterpart TV show, which had two seasons of the great JK Simmons bouncing between two timelines, where things are drastically different, including the big man himself.

Or the time-bending Lazarus, which is currently in production and has the world ending over and over again, but it's okay, because there's a reset butoon that only drives the people who know about it completely insane.

Weirdly, I never really got into The X-Files, even though it is the spiritual father of all these kinds of things, smashing together government paranoia with every piece of science fiction nonsense or straight up supernatural freak-outs available.

But I generally love these things, mainly because they are full of very, very serious people dealing with the most preposterous of scenarios. These things always have some kind of philosophical conundrum around the use of the strange technology, and its effects on human lives, but also have lots of double-crosses and gunfights and people in nice suits beating the shit out of each other, because they are, once again, very serious people who will do whatever it takes to get the job done, even as they bounce between universes and timelines.

Counterpart only lasted a couple of seasons, and I kind of hope Lazarus doesn't go on too long, even with a fantastic cast doing some wonderful work. Because you can only go so far down these rabbit holes before your arse gets stuck. Best to keep this kind of spy fantasy as a neat and nasty shock.