A Perfect Spy: Complete BBC Series (3 Disc Box Set) [DVD]

I don't think that this could have been any worse than it is. I persevered in watching this to see if it would get going because I didn't want to review something I hadn't watched. Not for one minute. This, I'm afraid was rubbish. I've not read the book, but if it's anything like this series, then I will not be bothering. This is a very poor example of le Carre. I have read many of his novels, and watched many of the films based on his books. This is the worst. Only got one star because I couldn't leave a review if I didn't leave a star. It might have helped if the acting was good. Sadly, it was not. This dvd is wending it's way to the charity shop.

I would love to have been more positive about this DVD/BBC production from 1987. Sadly 3 stars is the best I can give. The DVD itself is not too bad - perfectly watchable tho not exactly High Resolution. 4.3 ratio, with good subtitles. No extras. I never did rate the novel as one of Le Carre's best, but read it all the same back in the day. I also watched it on TV in '87, and I couldn't remember what i felt about it. So I was keenly anticipating seeing the serial again. Sadly I have to agree with some of the negative reviews. Slow, long pregnant pauses, complicate time shifts, wooden acting (on the most part - Ray McAnally being one exception). By the time episode 7 came around I had almost given up caring. Not all bad thank goodness, but generally a disapointment. I wonder what the BBC will do with "Little Drummer Girl"???

Absolutely brilliantly told story with a quality that is comparable to Tinker Taylor and Smiley's People, albeit without the top-down stellar cast. Less characters than the aforementioned but that allows a real depth of storyline. Ray McAnally and Alan Howard are both outstanding throughout the series.

A brilliant film-series of BBC! While reading John le Carrés biography I discovered personal gaps with books and films. Amazon helped me to close two of the: the BBC-series "A perfect spy" and the book "Eine kleine Stadt in Deutschland" (A small town in Germany). Both made my believe deeper that the core issue of John le Carré is not espionage but betrayal as it started with his father (commercially) and his mother (emotional, when left the family without the five years old son). The actors and the setting give a very good impression of the past some 30 years ago.

I watched this in one go. I didn't intend to, but the captivating performance by Peter Egan as the flawed, troubled Magnus Pym just meant it was impossible to stop. This is the biography of a spy and this BBC production with an amazing cast is a superb interpretation of Le Carre's book.The story is a take on the espionage world which parallels the historical (here fictionalised)  Cambridge Spies : Complete BBC Series [2003] [DVD ] in that one was left wondering if he were a perfect spy what would an imperfect spy look like?The dangling question, never fully answered (and the story is better for that) is "why?"We are introduced to someone with a troubled upbringing, a con artist/black marketeer father that consorted with "working girls" (but were tarts with hearts that seemed to offer him affection if not love) and an early life that drove his mother insane. The boarding school system was painted accurately as cruel and cold, nothing like the feasts at midnight or jolly japes of  Jennings Goes to School .Somehow the product of all this, still in thrall by his father, adopting some of his father's skills (perhaps a little like  The Talented Mr Ripley [DVD ]) became a spy and a double agent, with a triple life: the third being his bolt hole, known to none.Unlike the Cambridge spies, he seemed untroubled by ideology. His first love was a honey trap. But somehow the Czechs seemed to offer him something substantial but we're never explicitly told what it was.A marvellous tale, much better than  A Perfect Spy (BBC Audio)  so good I can't imagine watching it twice but I'm hanging on to the DVDs in case I change my mind.

I am a fan of spy shows and books. This is a great addition to the genre. Done in realistic fashion you are watching the tale unfold as years go by. It is done so well that at the end you can't believe you binged on it and spent most of the day watching this show. Great stuff. Spy fans take a peak at a more realistic view of a spy and what makes them tick.

It took me a while to warm up to this series and get it. Up to nearly the end, I thought it was too slow and convoluted. It takes a deep look at the spy's psychology: his father was a charming con man, either in the money or broke, even in jail; yet he always resurfaces, even to run for parliament. The boy is ashamed of him, loves him, feels guilt and responsibility towards him and never free. It is pathetic, yet his recruiters for "the firm" think a little crime in the family is a fine thing.The young man inherits the charm of his father and is apparently talented, at least if admission to Oxford means anything. He proves adept at gathering information discreetly, rarely regrets his betrayals, to the point that it is clear he is the same kind of sociopath his father is = he marries women he doesn't love for "cover" and eventually compromises himself because there is a need inside him that cannot be fulfilled. (I reveal nothing here, for his journey to this is what is important. It is subtle and complex, as we expect from Le Carre, and it is not spelled but must be interpreted, which is one thing I love about European film.) He is seduced and makes a career that makes a mockery of his colleagues and indeed the entire intelligence service. Of course, it works itself to a terrible crisis, not at all what one would expect. The spy, Pym, disappears, but the look of nervous exhaustion is unmistakeable and, I thought, believable.Though I found it difficult to understand what exactly the spy was supposed to be doing and what he did, it is revealed slowly. Perhaps too slowly. It does work very well in the end as a drama, but it may lose many viewers before the climax. Recommended. This is not as good as Smiley's People.