Experts say success of shows such as The Night Agent and Prime Target reflects growing public distrust of the state. I f television dramas are a reflection of society, then it is safe to say we are feeling extremely suspicious right now. It does not take an intelligence operative to spot the number of spy thrillers that have infiltrated TV streaming services, in what has been hailed as a golden age for the genre. Their popularity speaks to our times, experts say. In an age of fraying relations between nations, the rise of big tech and disinformation , and increasing public distrust in governments and institutions, people are looking to TV shows to help make sense of an unstable world.
All of it is fictitious, but it gives the illusion that we might occasionally understand how the world works. For all their plot variations, the current slate of spy shows have one thing in common: they interrogate binary notions of good versus evil. Their protagonists are flawed and the shadowy threat they face often comes from within their own ranks.
But even when Helen and her partner Sam are killing people, he wanted viewers to love them. Though they are bad, they are not the baddies. But now many come from within the government. Prime Target, which follows a Cambridge mathematics student who becomes an enemy of the deep state, is a perfect reflection of this.
Dr Joseph Oldham, the author of Paranoid Visions , emphasised that many of the new spy dramas are, or feel like, novel adaptations, with a strong narrative thread. For Bennett, the reason behind the surge is simple: dramatists enjoy writing about treachery and betrayal, and audiences long for a search for truth.
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