Review of The Ipcress File

I am enjoying the series, but it lacks any tension, I don't know anything about the other work of the all Director's involved in this series, but they have all failed it; as we go into one disaster after another without any build up, or surprise! It's too pedestrian, should have been cut to 2 or 3 episodes, it would have helped the pace of the show and maybe injected the tension. In the original film there were scenes where Palmer was doing nothing but because the camera was shooting through a broken window, a phone box window or above above a door on Palmer's landing etc, it gave the impression that someone was always watching him, creating a tension that had no actual bearing on the story and came to nothing, but it worked because we gave a huge sigh of relief in the end.

I appreciate they tried to show Joe Cole's version of Palmer as a bit of a lad, do anything to earn a buck, but the lad is totally miscast for the role, with those dark rimmed glasses he reminds me of a young Joe 90.

The designers have done a great job on evoking 60's London, but Berlin leaves a lot to be desired. I went to the city in 1995, and even then both East and West Berlin were extremely oppressive places, so Berlin in the 60's would have been terrifying and not easy to move around in.

For all my criticism, I'll continue to watch as I enjoy a good spy yarn, and it's good that the producers decided to create something using the characters from the novel, and not just churn out the novel or films.