User reviews

The Game is an absolutely first rate Cold War mini-series from the BBC set in the 1970's. The 70's feel is palpably conveyed through the authentic use of the fashions, hairstyles, vehicles and music from that decade. The plot is complex and intelligent with lots of twists and turns and will appeal to Le Carré fans. The acting is absolutely superb all round. The scenes inside the Security Service show that most of the people working there are paper shufflers rather than James Bond action types which is probably a more realistic portrayal. My only gripe is that it was only 6 episodes but as is often the case with the BBC, quality trumps quantity. If I could only have one station on my pay TV service it would definitely be the BBC. The quality of British productions in recent times, both on the big screen (e.g. Tinker Tailor, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything) and small screen (The Game, Peaky Blinders, The Honourable Woman), has been absolutely outstanding.

Watched this as a way to relax before going to sleep. Boy, was that a mistake.

First thing's first. This show is intense. There were several times where I had to pause the episode, take a breather (knowing that crap was about to hit the proverbial fan), and then play the remaining scene. The music and camera work seamlessly complemented each other providing tension at every turn. There are strange, asymmetric camera angles that were meant to distort your view so that you, the viewer, couldn't get a good look at what was going on.

Secondly, this show is more than just about the Cold War "game" between UK vs USSR. It shows the games we play in our social, professional, and public lives and how people cope. It's about intrigue and personal aspirations. Everyone is playing a game with each other.

Thirdly, the actors are top notch. So fantastic to see these characters fleshed out and actually have personality.

A thing to note: the show is definitely a slow burn. Things don't really "happen" per se as expected until episode 5. Every episode is DEFINITELY intense but when you stop and think about what actually happened during the course of 59 minutes, very little occurs. Each episode seems to focus on a particular aspect for the entire episode. Of course, in the end, everything comes together like a puzzle.

So I guess an earlier reviewer was correct in saying that the real game is to make us watch. Because it does. It makes you wonder about what's going to happen next, forces you to think back to earlier episodes for little details and hints about upcoming events, and finally reach the conclusion with the characters at the end of episode 6.

Really great watch.

As for Cold War events, the Brits and lately the Germans as well have produced so many good series that, from time to time, one might wonder that is it possible to outmatch them, to possess good framework and maintaining thrill, yet without insipid cliches. It is to my liking to announce that The Game has got into the list of the best of them in every aspect: there are lots of twists and turns, including each episode ending, the cast is even and distinguished, the mood and era have skilfully captured, and - last but not least - high-society British English is heard all the time. Well, one might ponder if the situation in the UK was then so harsh and unpredictable, with suspicious persons in the very top of the society, but all this does not seem ridiculous, as the logic and shift of scenes are motivated. I liked all the episodes, and it is regrettable that only one season was produced. People like Brian Cox, Shaun Doodley, Victoria Hamilton are always pleasant to follow, they have no trivial roles.

What a welcome return to television for this genre, cold war spy thriller, so popular back in the 1980's and for many years criminally absent. The Game was an awesome five part series, incredibly written and scripted, it was dark, pacey, loaded with intrigue and thoroughly engaging.

Superbly acted, I've been a little critical of Tom Hughes in the past, a guy that looks like a model I found a little one dimensional, but he silenced me in this, he was outstanding. Brian Cox, Paul Ritter, Judy Parfitt etc all fantastic, but Victoria Hamilton was on another level, always been a fan but here she was unbelievable, an awesome actress.

Part 4 was without a doubt one of the best hours of television I have ever watched, outstanding.

Utterly devastating that a second series wasn't commissioned, the BBC missed a golden opportunity with both this and Banished. Nevertheless The Game was a magnificent piece of drama, 10/10

I thought this series was a great show and want to know when or if you are making another. I enjoyed watching how the characters were built and unfolded and trying to work out who was what (baddie or goodie) in the characters. Also enjoyed the slower pace of the story as opposed to one and a half hour movies that squeeze as much out of the time as possible without portraying the 'real life' pace and how in 'real life' it is the bringing together of lots of small pieces of information that result in collating the whole picture/story.

Hope you make another one.

One part 'Tinker, Tailor', and one part 'Spooks', moody thriller 'The Game' tells the story of an attempt by the British government (in a thinly fictionalised 1970s) to spoil a major Soviet intelligence operation. There's the possibility of at least one mole, office politics, and a brooding air of tension amid general social decay. But what made John Le Carre's story so brilliant was its minimalism: not one thing happened that wasn't necessary for the plot. 'The Game' needs too many set pieces and seems to present an intelligence agency repeatedly guilty of both bizarre judgement and operational incompetence. The love story woven into the story has its own tragic conclusion; but none of the subtlety of George Smiley's complicated, broken relationship with Ann. Tom Hughes is underpowered in the lead role; the supporting cast, however, at least play their (somewhat stereotyped) parts with gusto.

I have just finished watching the final episode of The Game, and have to admit feeling on the one hand thoroughly satisfied and on the other, somewhat frustrated. On the positive side, this is a first rate drama with excellent production values - the acting is top notch, the characters well developed yet always leaving a sense that there is much kept hidden, the costumes, locations, cinematography and overall "feel" are spot on. The pace starts slowly - deliberately so - and picks up as the complex plot works its way inexorably towards its ultimate resolution. All in all, the feel is taught, suspenseful and engaging - this is a drama you are compelled to keep watching.

And so to the frustrations - as others have pointed out, there are a number of very glaring screw-ups in plot and "fieldcraft" which seem utterly at odds with the otherwise high quality of the production. I won't repeat all the errors here, but suffice it to say, it was enough to take the gloss off an otherwise exemplary and novel BBC drama. I would, nevertheless, encourage you all to watch it - just cut it a little slack! I for one very much hope there will be further series with this excellent cast. I just hope they spend a little more of the budget ironing out the glitches - if they do, this will be a series to rival the very best spy dramas ever produced.

I absolutely loved "THE GAME"...while it was on. Why not more than just one season, I'll never know. I love this genre and the 6 episodes drip in espionage as if it was written from the pen of John le Carré's monozygotic identical twin. It has a certified fresh rating of 95% for a reason. I suggest you watch it with closed captions on to help you understand the British accents better. I would also suggest you watch this on your DVD player so you can rewind the parts that might confuse you too much. The show reveals ways in which the USSR would plan out espionage years in advance and how it infiltrated into top positions of government. Deliberately paced and brooding in tone, yet laced with caustic wit, personal tragedy and sinister inference, The Game keeps us wondering how far will a foreign government go to disrupt and destroy our way of life in the west. It is a first rate production of the Cold War terror that we all feared at times growing up in the 60's and 70's.

Many of the other reviews here - whether giving a good, bad or mediocre rating - have got the tone of this fun series about right. This is not for people looking for something in the vein of Le Carre or Deighton, excepting on a surface level. While (as many have said) it is wonderfully played with great intensity and commitment by a great cast, there's always a feeling that it's all style and no substance whatsoever. Like a parody of Le Carre novel with most of the jokes removed and Daddy's M15 never feels like it could really exist. That's not to say that it isn't good fun - I enjoyed it immensely - but while Funeral in Berlin and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will stay with me for as long as I have breath I'll have forgotten The Game in a couple of weeks, which is a bit of a shame.

Call it a Le Carré light. MI5, spies and Cold War. Toby Whithouse, Sarah Dollard and Debbie O'Malley deliver 6 episodes of good fun and high entertainment full of suspense and surprise. Excellent mood and camera play, the viewer is convincingly cast back to a London of the 70's.

A tremendous performance from the entire cast especially Paul Ritter playing the hypocritical British public school creep! Worth watching if only for his performance and the exquisite interaction with his assistant the superb Chloé Pirrie (a touch naive, upright, loyal researcher).

The suspension of disbelief is perhaps called for to draw maximum enjoyment. The strength of the production rests chiefly on the convincing relationships fleshed out.

Why oh Why does the BBC have to nip above average productions in the bud. Xen is another example. It seems that the minute a viewer's brain is in any way engaged the Corporation pulls the plug out on it! Let's have some more please!

The premise is this: a Soviet agent holed up as a university professor in England gets called up for a major operation that consists in waking up sleeper cells in numbers for an unstated grievous purpose. He defects and spills the beans to the MI5. The MI5 - represented, for the most part, by the love-child of Morrissey and a flock of cats (Tom Hughes) - expects the worst and stands up to the challenge, monitoring the operation in desperate hope that they may get one step ahead of the Russians. Needless to say, with 6 hour-long episodes, it's easier said than done. All this takes place in the bleak environs of early-1970s London, in cramped spaces, dilapidated housing, and persistent rain (reminiscent of "Se7en"). The series is well-made and entertaining. The pace - initially somewhat pedestrian - quickens by the 4th episode to get you panting by the 5th. At first, the drama seems very facile - seeming to boil down to a personal duel between Tom Hughes's "Joe Lambe" and a KGB killer on the loose in England. But there's enough of side story to this to keep you thinking there's more to it than that. And, frankly, you do get rewarded. On the technical side, the editing is near-perfect and the acting is pretty good, too. I was stuck on Victoria Hamilton' performance in "Mansfield Park," but she's a completely different thing here, with enormous self-assurance and power. Brian Cox is also a perfect hit as the head of MI5 ("Daddy"). If anything, it's Hughes that seems rather odd - his appearance and demeanor is somewhat out of place. On the one hand, this may be a virtue, since he does portray a far less bleak character than it initially appears. On the other hand, he's anachronistic - a poster-boy for the new romantic or a candidate for a remake of "Anna Karenina." The portrayal of "the game" resonates with all that an avid reader of le Carre will know - that it's almost never fun and games, and that it's not about the spectacular at all. The "games" we see played out in the series are not just about espionage - they are also about the personal lives of the characters who either play or get played. While it's not on level with the classic le Carre stuff with Alec Guinness, there's enough substance here to make you hope there's more to come from this source. This is really good enough to see.

I watched this when it came out and found it fundamentally ridiculous, but fast-moving and rather fun. Just watched it again eight years later... and it still seems silly but fun.

What a bunch of doofuses these characters are! They have to be the sloppiest, most inept counterintelligence agents ever assembled. They can't keep valuable assets alive. They let dangerous enemies slip through their hands. They're like amateurs when it comes to surveillance, sitting on nearby benches, peering from phone booths and parked cars, or stationing themselves too far from the bugged scene to do any good.

And weirdest of all, despite the fact that this handful of characters apparently represent the core of British intelligence -- the top administrators in the department with direct connections to Downing Street, the key executives making life-or-death decisions that affect the very survival of Great Britain -- nonetheless they seem to do all the dangerous scut work themselves. They're always off in the field tracking enemy assassins, interrogating possible spies, sneaking into other people's flats to plant bugs, taking on false identities, risking their lives, or else engaging in drudgelike research, as if they're the only people in their huge modern headquarters who actually do any work. In short, the series seems to suggest that the entire British intelligence apparatus consists of half a dozen overworked jacks of all trades.

Still, the action remains lively, the dialogue is sharp and clever, the music properly accentuates the suspense, and the cast is uniformly terrific, with the glaring exception of a miscast Tom Hughes. He seems way too young, and apparently was directed to keep his face, at all costs, utterly expressionless.

It is hard to make memorable piece in this genre, The Game proves it again. As I can remember for me only The Americans could provide quality kill-time in the topic.

This present creation is a british avarage spy series with a predictable twist. I have liked the darker, slow paced mood, you can not get lost in the names and actions, which can happen in this type of series. The cast was pretty good, especially Victoria Hamilton and Paul Ritter. The story by the way was whole, well closed. I can only recommend it for a weekday afternoon/evening pastime after a wearing workday, but without any high expectations. You will not lose anything if you miss it.

Perhaps this reviewed is skewed since I grew up during the Cold War, but although the filming, acting, and atmosphere are spot on, there are inexplicable discrepancies in the plot that simply make no sense. Bodies are knocked out and left prone with no attempt to interrogate. Wire taps are set and the listeners just far away enough not to prevent the obvious disaster. Comedy is interjected at inappropriate moments and seems ridiculous, rather then funny. Also, the writers have thrown historical accuracy to the wind, and the story takes on a "Twilight Zone," science fiction tone. If I provide exact examples, I will spoil the show for those viewers who simply desire snappy entertainment. Thus, I will show restraint. The Game could have been a TV LeCarre, but alas, it is more pop then intrigue.

Intrigue. twists. Solid cast with great performances. Just an around good series. I give this limited series an 8 (great) out of 10. {Spy Thriller}