Culture of Death

This may seem like an odd way to begin blogging from Switzerland, but we were introduced to this dynamic BBC program - MI5 in the States - during our last tour of duty. Refreshingly played by more classically trained actors emphasizing the physicality of acting; emotion tied to formal muscle movement, not the premise of romantic expressivity a la Hollywood (playing a taxi driver means interning at Yellow Cab, then giving voice to an authentic spirit). Not as severely overpayed as in the USA, these faces are seen in numerous shows & ads, while countering Hollywood tropes; ie morally flawed, complex heroes actually die.
Britain's answer to 24, except the European stage plays off of post-Cold War politics and hypocrisy in a single-superpower world; individual and national ambitions contradict and reinforce each other in complex ways.
Not all the actors are hunks and the more literate dialogues - spiced with Shakespeare, Milton, ancient war histories - also feature "normal" life, ie you'll find the male protagonist (Adam) folding a paper towel into a coffee filter while the average-looking intelligence queen (Ruth) attends her weekly chorale.

My personal favorite episode featured the fallen MI5 officer with paranoid delusions (below) staging a suicide, holding fellow officers captive. Memorable lines, touching upon fate:

We are what happened
to us.

and secular culture's lack of heroism:

We used to have a culture of death,
when England was Christian.

We stumbled onto Spooks years ago, finally viewing all episodes in order last year, and discovered a British expat subculture; a community dating back to the 1800s, lining the cities of Lake Geneva with tearooms, Anglican churches, bookstores, and upper-class aesthetes having mountaintop epiphanies en route to chasing sun-drenched landscapes in Italy. This fall's season 10 may mean the end of the principal, Harry!