The Assets (2014) User Reviews

Oh ABC, you had me, then...

[TotonotinKansas · 8/10 · 20 January 2014]

ABC, just go on back to the mental junk food of half hour long strings of juvenile sexual innuendos peppered with near-continuous canned laughter. Based on a mere 2 episodes, I give The Assets an "8" for the potential of what might have been as compared to what the major networks are more comfortably determined to feed us. I was hopeful it would continue to hold my attention.

A couple of criticisms; the flashbacks seemed a little too frequent and hard to tell when they ended. And regarding Grimes' home life scenes; I didn't care for the stereotypical sullen teen, and Grimes' repeated line to her husband "you know I can't talk about that", I wondered how soon that would get tiresome. Those minor annoyances might have smoothed out in future episodes, BUT WE'LL NEVER KNOW! Hey Netflix, HBO, somebody, anybody!

The Ames spy scandal is worthy of quality dramatization, in spite of the fact that, yes, we know how it turned out (Titanic, Lincoln, any WWII movie - we knew in advance how those turned out). There are so many true stories out there so worthy of being dramatized; read about Douglas McKiernan, the first CIA agent killed in the line of duty - an incredible story!

Unflashy Mini-Series gets no attention

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 11 January 2014]

Based on a true story, Sandy Grimes (Jodie Whittaker) is a CIA officer trying to cultivate assets in the Soviet Union. Little does she knows, there is a mole in her office she sees every day. Aldrich Ames (Paul Rhys) has been selling CIA secrets to the Soviets.

It's obvious that ABC had no confidence in this show/mini-series. They put it out at the end of the holiday seasons with little or no advertising. It's meant to be nothing more than cannon fodder going into the Winter Olympics. Nobody was paying attention, and nobody watched. It's not a surprise that they canceled it after 2 episodes especially considering the anemic ratings.

I did like the realistic (read not flashy) spy craft. But that's all I found interesting. I like Jodie Whittaker in some of her work. The problem is that we know from the start who the mole is. There isn't much mystery in any of this. Without any mystery, there isn't much driving this show. The audience is just waiting for the CIA to catch the guy. It's probably better as a shorter mini-series. It just doesn't have the flash bang whiz pow of modern TV.

Excellent History Adaptation

[dawnknapp · 8/10 · 21 January 2014]

As a fan of "The Americans," I really enjoyed this show. It is very different, yet similar. Different in that it is not only historical, but the flash we often see in shows is not there. Not every show needs to be flashy. I liked seeing the history of this event as I recall when it happened. I think the actors did a fine job and I didn't hear many slips in their accents considering they were Brits playing Americans. I thought Paul Rhys was excellent casting and did a fine job - I liked when he was interrogating the Russian spy and almost bite down on the cyanide. I am disappointed that it was canceled after only two episodes only to put on another "Reality" show. I already have my own reality to live in, I want to see shows that affected us (history), or sitcoms in the evening. I am tired of endless magazine shows and reality shows, this was a nice break. Networks are going to start losing viewers if they keep it up.

Excellent

[enaashby46 · 9/10 · 22 September 2014]

I was greatly disappointed when The Assets was canceled just after two episodes. Considering that about 30% of the US knows what the three branches of government are but probably know Miley's latest twerking episode or which size bra one of those inane Kardashian sisters is wearing, I am not surprised that a series which stretched one's mental capacities would be canceled.

I watched it on Netflix and found it to be a fascinating story of how a very weak and malleable Aldrich Ames was willing to sell his country's secrets just to keep his second wife in the lap of luxury. It captured the grizzly reality of the KGB and the evils of communism. I know in some circles, it is not kosher to criticize communism. Perhaps that was another indictment of this series.

I would highly recommend it- great acting, realistic recreations of the 1980s and wonderful storyline.

As good as a mini series can get.

[demiurgiac · 10/10 · 16 September 2014]

We don't watch enough TV to have known about the flap over this show getting canceled. Just stumbled across it on Netflix. Wow. Nearly everything about this effort is really done well. They really went the extra yard concerning production details. I don't pretend to really know why it was canceled except to say it was not because its a bad or boring production. Even though we all know the outcome (more or less) the story is told so well it still qualifies as a mystery or thriller and sorta-kinda has you on the edge of your seat as they start getting closer and closer to 'the mole'. I didn't pay any real close attention when all this actually occurred. After watching this show I am now compelled to read books like "Sell Out: Aldrich Ames and the Corruption of the CIA.

I enjoyed the spy craft

[sdgrmt · 18 January 2014]

I am waiting for ABC to let the other 6 episodes be available for streaming. Many fictional mysteries start with the same premise of knowing who the culprit is. It can still be a great journey in solving the situation. My 16 year old was choosing to put down his electronic devices and and watch this with us. I also enjoy the non dramatic way that home life people with security clearance jobs are shown. My only confusion was why it was an almost all British cast for a very American show and topic. However they were doing the accents well. My husband and I were young enough when these real events happened that we really only read the headlines and it fascinating to get a more in depth look at the happenings.

The history is great, the quality of the show not really

[JurijFedorov · 6/10 · 26 June 2022]

Frustrating TV show! It's a true story about maybe the worst mole in US history. It's obviously made for guys who like the Cold War, spying, reading about KGB and USSR and CIA and FBI. It's right up my alley. Plus the Ames movie was really cool, but unfortunately too short and shallow so it really made me interested in watching this way more expensive and longer TV show version. I saw that the reviewers were split on this show. When it aired it was a giant disaster. No one watched it. Viewers hated it so much that they didn't even air all episodes. And it's very clear why this happened. The show has a ton of glaring errors that just hit you in the stomach again and again.

The acting is unacceptable. You know those cheap 40 min doc TV show episodes about some disaster where they hire random people who look like the person to play the role? They go out into the desert, or into a mock airplane and then film some scenes in a day. The person will just speak his lines without preparation and the doc will try to cut most of it out or put narration over it. Yeah, this mini series has worse acting still. Some of the acting is horrible. Ames is inexcusable bad acting. It's a lead role! The guy looks like him and acts creepy enough. But all his lines are delivered with a slimy slow cadence. It's extremely bad. There is even a scene where he buys a house with his wife and he spins around with his arms in the air and shouts "We bought a house." Why are they forcing us to watch this? The Russian actors are 80% non-Russians. So British people learning Russian lines. And it's extra weird as a few Russian speaking actors, especially the kids, are native speakers. It creates a ton of scenes where one small part actor is fluent and the big shot actor is stumbling over his Russian words. And why are they not always speaking Russian? The show tries to make the Russians speak English most of the time. But it's not consistent. So you may have a scene where a character speaks Russian to one character then out of nowhere speaks English to another character. Are they actually speaking Russian in the scene? I just don't know. At least I know Ames spoke Russian in real life so when he interviews a Russian deserter I assume they are speaking Russian? Nothing hints at this whatsoever though.

The directing is god awful. Inexcusable. Some sets must have taken ages to recreate. You have perfectly replicated apartments or offices from 1985. Old cars, proper buildings. Then you have actors walking in stumbling over their lines and not knowing what to say when. So how come you spend a ton of money on sets and even clothes and don't ask the actors to rehearse their lines at home? It's a colossal waste of resources.

The editing is some of the worst I have ever seen. It's frankly a simple show to edit. Most scenes are set inside the CIA offices. And all sets are set up carefully. So you have scenes carefully recreated. And you have A TON of info about everything. Even full interviews that took place. All episodes last 40 minutes. So you basically can open an old notebook and let the actors act out an interview. Instead most scenes are fake generic recreations. In interview scenes you will have generic questions. Not CIA stuff, just movie dialogue to waste our time. And the editors are frantically trying to make it work somehow. In one episode where Ames interviews a high ranking Russian deserter they have Ames constantly ask one question "who is the mole?" and the deserter is constantly asking for a cup of tea. That's it. They just repeat this for over 5 minutes. They didn't try to act out a real CIA interrogation. The editors had nothing to work with. The episode runtime has to be filled out and there is no proper dialogue or real CIA work. So they are trying to edit in tension and excitement. Something clearly not in the scene where the same question is repeated again and again. Hence you get bad acting, bad dialogue, and then editing trying to fake drama out of nothing which makes it 10 times worse. Same thing happens in scenes where parents meet their kids. The kids are just saying genetic stuff like "I love you" and the editors try to make it last 3 minutes to fill up the runtime. At least they could have made the kids talk about 80's stuff or play with 80's toys. Or they could discuss current day news. They gave the editors nothing to work with. The director likely just told the actors to act out some "dad and daughter scene" they did that for 5 minutes. The director yells cut. They give it to the editor and ask the editor to cut it down to 3 minutes. Where is the script? You constantly feel like a TV show based on a full book could have spent the time presenting more info instead of using filler scenes. Episode 1 is nice, then it becomes obvious they are making filler episodes. Then the last 2 episodes are proper again. Maybe the studio told them to create 8 episodes instead of 6 and they had to add in a ton of filler acting scenes to make it stretch. They also have a ton of flashbacks. Every third scene is a flashback so we never quite understand what happened when. They don't age the actors. So you may have a scene then a flashback scene 10 years in the past with the same actors looking exactly the same. Confusion.

The plot. It's a show about a real investigation. A mini team was set to find Ames. Now, these agencies don't really want to find moles. Finding a mole just makes them look worse and on the positive side you get... not much really. You are bascially proving yourself incompetent and not worth the state budget. MI6 and CIA rather hide the moles away. Kim Philby was basically told to flee to USSR when he was found out. MI6 didn't want him captured as it would mean negative media attention. The biggest mole in UK history just escaped and started working for KGB becoming their most knowledgeable spy and an expert on the West. Basically giving KGB a perfect image of how CIA, FBI, and MI6 worked. They didn't take full advantage of that of course as he was Western and they hated Westerners. Anyhow, it was a small CIA team and the book is written by 2 women on the team. And one died before the TV show was made the other was alive to likely guide the TV show into making her look like a Mary Sue. Jodie Whittaker, a British actress, tries her best to fake an American accent as Sandy Grimes. It's never good. But it's acceptable. She's young, attractive. The real life Grimes looked 30 years older. Which also makes you wonder how she can look 25, but have a teen daughter. And in flashback scenes 10 years in the past she looks exactly the same. At least they could have changed hair color. Jeanne Vertefeuille here looks 20 years younger. And she has black hair in all scenes while she had grey hair in real life. You have a perfect way to age her properly by giving her a grey wig in later scenes. Keep in mind the show itself starts in 1985 when Ames started spying for KGB. So from 1985 to 1994 when he was arrested and the actors still look as young as the did at the start. Even the males are way too young here. And none are aged. You have flashbacks in 1975, and a scene set in 2012. In 1985 the real life people looked way older than the actors in 2012... fishy.

So you have a hot blonde running around doing everything. She's the one who wrote the book and can guide the producers. In the show she's doing 90% of the work investigating Ames. A Mary Sue character. We even see her get up early to cook breakfast for her whole family. And she had a bunch of ideas that all turned out to be perfect guesses for what KGB did, what happened to some person, or what a clue meant. Constantly seeing everything while everyone else is doubting her or doing nothing. Her boss initially lets her follow all her assumptions and she's right all the time. Scarily so. Then out of nowhere he tells her she can't follow a new assumption. So yeah, she's infallible yet is told to stop. Why? Later in the show Jeanne Vertefeuille, the other book author, gets a positive arc too. Just a small role though. All CIA agents are nice people except for Ames who is over the top creepy and doesn't fit in. The only CIA agent who looks off.

Why the Mary Sue though? I assume they are too afraid to make women look weak or fallible? Real CIA work is done in groups with a ton of bad guesses. She makes 1 single mistake. She forgets to lock the door and Ames walks into the room and reads everything acting super creepy. She later guesses he's the mole and has to convince everyone. She slowly convinces everyone one at a time which is actually super fun to watch in the last 2 episodes. But then a Russian KGB agent reveals that Ames is the mole. So practically they didn't need to do anything to find the mole. As soon as the Russian agent tells them about Ames and gives them concrete evidence they can start recording and following Ames. Before that they couldn't. Without their investigation Ames' arrest would have happened in the same year anyhow. This is how is works 95% of the time in the real world. You don't have agencies finding their own spies. Even in this show at one point the investigation team is shut down and the CIA leaders explain that they don't want to find the mole as it's not good for them. The Mary Sue character is a superhero who in the show cannot get actual results as it would be ahistorical.

Overall it was a good enough watch. I had to look away in the cringe parts. About 4 episodes are filler. But real history and spy work is fascinating enough to engage me. An editor reediting this show for fun could make it really fun! There is enough here to make a good show by removing 30% of it. Not even just scenes. Often the regular daily life stuff just continues for way too long. The camera lingers 3 seconds too long on characters to fill up the runtime making dialogue cringe. Reediting the Ames lines to make it flow would save the show. But who will do the editing?

Excellent portrayal of espionage

[belindar-2 · 9/10 · 15 January 2014]

Excellent portrayal of what happened and displayed in a realistic form. I found the show to be entertaining and informative. The actors did a great job of showing how the CIA works. It is one of the better spy shows on TV today and I hope it is picked up by one of the cable stations, where it would really be appreciated. The flow of the show was easy to follow with the back and forth of the flashbacks which gave the show a form of connecting the dots. There is not any blood and guts shown in the first two episodes but it keeps the audience interest with the intrigue. It is sad the show was canceled before it could get into the deeper espionage of what really happened. I will miss this show.

Enjoyed but found some flaws

[molnarbelgium · 6/10 · 25 February 2019]

A tv show I can only recommend. The only bothering issue is that Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania is shown as Moscow, Washington, Vienna etc. That is hardly authentic. Different climate, plants, streets, buildings cannot be portrayed like this. Also, some actors playing Russians have quite a bad command of Russian. Apart from that everything is authentic, fitting true events.

why the low ratings? good show

[dfwforeignbuff · 9/10 · 24 September 2014]

There is a lot of press about the low ratings this series has gotten and much info about ABC canceling the show after the first 2 episodes,. (now they are running the last episodes on Sunday afternoons) I don't understand why the low ratings. It is an excellent production based on the true Aldrich Ames spy story. I found every episode informative intriguing and factual. Its a great spy story. I am long time reader of spy and mystery books and found the series to be quite good. I will now find and read the book. highly recommended. be sure and watch the last episode (9) about the true facts and photos of the story. I streamed all 9 episodes on netflix.

Too many talented actors to give this a bad rating

[johnwwwatson · 7/10 · 5 December 2014]

I love a good spy flick as much as the next person, so I looked forward to this series even though I already knew the historical facts. What bothers me most of all about this story is the implausible circumstances, could our CIA be that stupid? How many government employees had over $500,000 in cash to buy a home? And even after the CIA knew this, they still weren't sure he was the mole. The lead actors from the UK and supporting cast held this together. If our government was that stupid at that time maybe there's no way to make it look good no matter how much money you throw at a film. It's watchable and I learned a lot more about the lives lost on the other side. Bolshoi Cpaciba Ruskies

For me a very compelling series, I watch all 9 in one sitting.

[numberonesup · 9/10 · 27 November 2014]

I by chance saw this on Amazon Prime. Was just going through the titles looking for something to watch. I am totally aware this show was canceled after just 2 shows, with at the time the lowest rating ever.

I speak only for myself, but I honestly find that impossible to understand. I felt this series was outstanding. Good acting, great pretrial of those actually involved.

I found it so interesting and compelling.

Somehow, someway the timing on it's release was somehow not right.

I just want all those involved in the making of this series, you did a great job and there is at least one individual that takes his hat off to you.

British spies caught imitating Americans.

[johnrgreen · 6/10 · 20 September 2018]

At one point in this series all the actors involved were British, all giving their best American accents a try out.The feller who played the hilarious dope head in Withnail was in conflict with the new Dr Who.Anyway and having said all that, this was an intriguing true story about the unearthing of a mole in the CIA system.The deception and methods to reveal the culprit were well told but my only cavil would be that it would have made a better one-off film or two -parter.

Need to be more careful on details of 1985 Moscow...

[thunt2706 · 5/10 · 15 January 2014]

I've been watching the first episode of "The Assets" and it's OK. Unfortunately, whoever set all this up didn't do their homework on 1985 Moscow...

In the scene where the US spy is leaving Moscow at the airport, there is a Doppler radar tower in the background, behind the old Gaz Volga he is getting out of to go to the plane. There was no Doppler radar towers in the U.S. in 1985, much less in Moscow...

In one of the scenes in Moscow, Christ the Savior Cathedral is in the background. In 1985, it did not exist. It was blown up in the early 1930's by Stalin and not rebuilt until the mid-late 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Also, I don't know much about spy protocol, but walking around Moscow or any city for that manner, at night, alone in wide open spaces, is raw stupidity. Crowds help individuals blend. Being out alone is just the way to get caught. i would like to think our spies weren't that obvious.

Otherwise, it was decent television...

Portrayal of true espionage case over period of several years, involving the CIA, and other US agencies. Very gripping

[susan-jereb · 3 August 2014]

First of all, I would like to say that we started watching this series in 2013. When it was time for the third episode, we were totally hooked. But the third episode was nowhere to be found. Looking online we found that there wasn't enough interest in this program? We couldn't believe it, so very happy that it was being shown this season.

The acting, the presentation of each episode had us eagerly waiting for the next episode. This was a story about a regular human being who chose to do the wrong thing and this continued for years. It was heart wrenching to see the results of his behavior, the loss of life which ensued.

There were many characters in this story who were anxious the get to the truth, but only two who worked many days, years of long hours, despite the time away from family and friends.

Again this person was leading a regular life, married with a young child, but was unable to change his ways. Watching the evolution of the case against this person was a lesson in the workings of bureaucracy. It was unclear what the outcome would be. Great series, worth watching

Good miniseries

[dariakelleher · 10/10 · 3 August 2014]

I didn't know about mistakes in the visuals and I understood before I saw it that Aldrich Ames was the spy but I still thought this was well done. Just because you know the ending doesn't mean it can't be suspenseful. Anyway, I thought everybody was good in this show and I looked forward to the next episode. It beats the heck out of the junk on TV about amateur performers, morons getting dates, fat people losing weight and people falling off things. If you want something with a good story you usually end up on HBO or Showtime. I'd like to thank ABC for showing the remaining episodes. I appreciated that. Even if it was a weird time. You have to love timers.

Fascinating true spy story

[ChristyLeskovar · 10/10 · 1 November 2014]

"The Assets" is about the CIA hunt for the mole who turned out to be Aldrich Ames. Fascinating story telling–parallel plot lines of Ames selling secrets to the Soviets, and his CIA colleagues discovering they have a mole in their midst and trying to figure out who it is. It is based on the book written by two of the women on the CIA team tasked with finding the mole. One of them, Sandra Grimes, was a writer on the mini-series. Very well done. It made me want to read the book ("Circle of Treason"). When all this came out in the media back in the '90s, I thought Ames came across as an arrogant narcissist. That isn't how Paul Rhys (Welsh actor) played him. Even so, from the first episode when he walks into the Soviet Embassy, I couldn't wait for this guy to get caught. The last episode is a documentary about the case, so you get to see and hear from the actual people, which I really liked. The show was also a window into FBI methods. I watched it on Netflix.

The story carries it

[hist-36123 · 6/10 · 28 March 2024]

Based on a memoir of a CIA agent involved with the apprehension of the notorious spy Aldrich Ames, The Assets doesn't particularly satisfy spy cravings as much as hoped. I realized quickly that it had been a network television show in 2014, and likely didn't have the budget or other support it would have from other companies such as F/X or Showtime, which I mention because I had just come off binges of The Americans and Homeland.

The script seems like a throwback to before 1990 (think first season of Law & Order, or any '80s cop show), while the acting and directing reminded me of daytime soap operas .

Still, I suggest that you give it a try simply because it more or less narrates the most important spy lore in recent history. Maybe follow up with watching Breach, and your covert cravings could be tamed for a little while.

The cast did what it could with limited resources and expectations. The season sells for about $24 on Prime, and it's nowhere close to that in value. But that's HD. Buy the SD version for half, and you have a fair purchase for your money.

Essential Cold War lore

[ultright · 10/10 · 3 April 2021]

The future repeats the past in slightly new form. We're in a new Cold War now, so we might as well study the old. It makes sense to explore the Cambridge Five, Kim Philby, Ronald Pelton, John Walker, and probably Benedict Arnold. This series, driven by the immensely powerfuly Jodie Whittaker, explores the search for a double agent in an organization utterly unprepared for the wave of betrayals that happened after the 1960s.

Turns a good spy story into an embarrassing hymn to Girl Power

[210west · 7/10 · 28 February 2023]

This series might almost be entitled "How I, a heroic, chronically underappreciated supermom, single-handedly caught the CIA's mole."

Granted, that would be a little harsh, because "The Assets" turned out to be considerably more watchable and suspenseful than I'd expected. But it highlights the series' main flaw.

It's based on Sandra Grimes' book, written with fellow CIA staffer Jeanne Vertefeuille, and Grimes was also a consultant on the series. In a way that feels embarrassingly self-aggrandizing, it makes Grimes not only the heroine of her own story -- the hardworking mom who, with pluck and persistence, against all odds, captures traitor Aldrich Ames ("I'm not giving up!" she declares. "Someone betrayed us, and I'm gonna get him!") -- but also turns her into a paragon of virtue. We see her burning the midnight oil, working late even to the point of endangering her marriage, sleeping on the office couch ("Sandy worked all weekend... She didn't leave the building!"), figuring out that there's a mole, mulling over lists of possible suspects, crumpling paper and going back over her lists, working out the problem, relying on her infallible woman's intuition.

By the end, all her insights vindicated, she's become a nationally lauded TV figure and bestselling writer. Her admiring husband tells her what a superwoman she is: "I'm so proud of you, Sandy," he gushes. "You are my hero." (Feel like gagging?) Her admiring boss credits her with initiating the counterintelligence investigation: "You were right," he admits, and in a later episode, "You're right!" In fact, as one of the commenters here noted, in this series she's ALWAYS right, always the smartest one in the room. Her admiring partner tells her that she has the talent to be "the best case officer in the agency." (Feel like gagging again?)

I didn't read Grimes' book, and I don't know how truthful this account is, but it's irritating. This sort of simplification, this focus on a single heroic female, felt false in "Zero Dark Thirty," about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and it feels false here. At one point Grimes modestly assures her boss that the capture of Ames was a team effort, but this seems mere lip service, since the story is all about her.

And insofar as the series focuses on her, it's a bore, because she's simply not interesting -- especially as played by Jodie Whittaker, the weakest note in an otherwise superb, virtually all-British cast playing Americans.

P. S. Did people in the early 1980s really say "That's why they pay me the big bucks?" I don't know the answer, and it's a small thing, but like other aspects of this series, it felt false.

Television at its best.

[jdyx5 · 10/10 · 5 April 2015]

My husband and I found this incredible mini-series on Netflix last night and watched 7 of the nine episodes, saving the last two for "desert" today. I kept wondering why we had never heard of it until I looked it up and found it had been canceled after 2 episodes. Shame on ABC!! We knew the story but the suspense is just as intense as if we had never heard of Aldritch Ames. The acting is top-notch and Paul Rhys would have received a nomination at the very least if the show had been given a chance. I intend to tell everyone I know to check it out on Netflix, etc. I assure them they will not be disappointed. It's billed as "based on a true story" but when I researched Ames I was impressed that the series did indeed stick to the facts and didn't try to embellish history.

....." Are You Kiddin Me "

[kcmaxx2 · 10/10 · 23 January 2014]

....Thanks for 3 episodes !!! I am old enough to remember a TV drama called " Espionage " and later the "Professionals" U.K.. Now when I saw the TV trailers for the Assets ; I was so trilled to see a TV show that was cerebral driven... and not a whimsy satirical comedy dramas like "leverage" which if they staged seriously could have had all the makings of a good gritty drama. Even the old TV series of Mission Impossible had you glued to the TV set. Also in that time was " The Man from Uncle ". I still enjoy the re-runs after all this time. We have to ask why was "24" was so popular all around the world. And after 5 series all the major U.S. TV networks secretly tried to get it off the air. Even getting the director "fired". Because of its vast popularity and it was taking away viewer ship from boring programs. Over the the years I found TV both here and U.K. have channeled T.V. programs to the point of actually turning away thinking viewers. Just to list a few personal movies, "Telephon ; Numbers Station, Tinker ,Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The International; Erasure, The Fourth Protocol ; The Good German; Torn Curtain; Brass Target, which I can't find any where again; Carlos foreign series, and many more.

If Lifetime got a hold of an AMC script

[jlocopo-12-968994 · 3/10 · 4 August 2014]

SPOILERS AHEAD Wow...so I started watching this under-promoted show back in January when ABC was airing it in prime-time before they quickly shelved it and buried it in the summer on Sunday afternoons (thank god for DVR's). At first, I thought this was excellent, interesting and downright shocking that it was airing on a non-cable network as it seemed much more likely to be on AMC or HBO.

But then as time went on, it quickly devolved into tripe and relied on typical made up BS to enhance the 'drama' such as: the plucky investigator that no one believes at first, the husband that doesn't fully understand why his wife never comes home from work, the 'enemy' at first co-worker who eventually gains trust, admiration and then friendship, etc. And don't get me started on the snidely whiplash super creepy over the top performance by Paul Rhys as Alrich Ames. Jeez, they should have arrested him immediately just for looking creepily guilty And it closes on one of the most unintentionally funny scenes I have ever seen (the bookstore signing hug)...wow. Hello Lifetime! Now, I also have a huge issue on how they treated the subject matter. The assets in question are Russian KGB, generals, officials, that decided, for whatever reason INCLUDING greed to sell their countries secrets to the US. Aldrich Ames sells the names of these 'assets' to the Russians who then interrogate and execute them. Aldrich Ames is a traitor and deserved to be tried and convicted but SO ARE THE ASSETS HE SOLD OUT!!! They were traitors to their own country and rather than portraying them as such, they are practically treated as saints.

In life there are never clear cut black and white issues and this mini series could have shown that but instead took the easy formulaic way out. And the shame is that they were close on the execution

Slow but engaging

[kris-gray · 8/10 · 19 September 2018]

Some of the negative reviews here complain that the story moves too slowly. This is an espionage thriller in the likes of Tinker Tailor, the Spy who Came in From the Cold and other John Le Carre stories, it is not James Bond hence no car chases, explosions and CGI just a sold good (almost true) story.

I not that the American station dropped in after 2 episodes, probably due to the fact the lead cast is predominantly English, other than Stuart Milligan who has spent a lot of time in the UK in productions here, Johnathan Creek and Dr Who amongst others. So US audiences were probably miffed at this and turned off.

If you enjoyed TTSS then you will enjoy this but if you are looking for crash bang wallop CGI then no, you won't.

Two Great things about this series

[yellowsky12 · 8/10 · 13 January 2015]

There were many things I liked about this series..but two of the most notable are..

1. the female leads are near appropriate age for the characters..I am SO TIRED of female characters in movies who are hot, great bods, have PHD's in whatever and at the age of 25 save the world! Every TV show - every movie seems to do this and i am so tired of it.

2. The motivation for the antagonist was realistic and I enjoyed knowing who it was from the first few minutes of the series with the suspense being how long it would be before he would get caught. o many series and movies these days after 20 car chases and 10 explosions catch the bad guy and their motivation was typical or didn't really logically make sense

Good series - glad to have watched - hope there are more