Again with the spies.  In Burn After Reading, spies are used in satirical vein, proof that noone knows anything.  In Quantum of Solace, they’re to be admired: full of maverick glamour and depicted as if in credit card commercials.  And then there’s Spooks.

Spooks is unusual in that, for a good while at least, every series was better than the preceding one.  Hard to say whether that’s still the case, but if the show has reached a plateau it’s one at an enviable height.  This time round, the boys and girls of MI5 continue to be part of an international web of intrigue, with Russia making a surprise reappearance as one of the key players, behind the death of one of the show’s most liked characters, the blonde bombshell Adam Carter.

Make no mistake, Spooks has its own glamour.  Its black-suited characters are forever meeting shady contacts between the pillars of classical buildings, and there’s a clipped minimalism to the script which with some sardonic humour too makes them come across as very bright indeed.  And they’ve got our best interests at heart, which is more than can be said for some of the actual players in British espionage, who in days gone by at least included a seam of barking mad right wingers intent on bringing about rule by a military and public school elite lest the democratically elected Labour government get too pally with the unions.  The Spooks characters are cut from a different cloth: to be admired, and looked up to, but not with the kind of chummy empathy that’s possible with characters on Coronation Street, say.

So, if Ros and crew aren’t insane free marketeers or rugger buggers with plans to rebuild Empire, what are they?  That’s a question that gets to the heart of what Spooks is about.  Its characters recognisably live in a world torn from today’s headlines, with economic crises, Al Qaeda, an American election and Eastern Europe in turmoil.  And they’re trying to respond to that world in such a way that it safeguards a modern pluralist multi-cultural Britain.  Which is why the show includes a young Muslim in its ranks, posing as a fanatic in order to infiltrate an Al Qaeda cell.  And that same commitment to hearing the voices of others explains why a senior Al Qaeda figure wants to negotiate with the MI5 crew, on the condition that a prominent civil rights lawyer who has acted against the agency is present.

It’s clever stuff, all about the knots and intricacies created by the ethical dilemmas of espionage in the modern world.  Sure, there are more emotional storylines running through, about one agent recovering from a bomb blast, and the team responding to Adam’s death, but the principal focus is on the thornier matter of ethics.  And it brings them to life brilliantly: nothing like adding guns and street chases to a storyline about the relativism implicit in judgements of Islamic fundamentalism to make a scene ratttle along.

This is high calibre television, intelligent enough that I can’t keep up with all its intricacies, except when I’ve realised on a second viewing that there’s a certain amount of smoke and mirrors going on in Spooks: the emphasis is on maintaining momentum rather than exposing the workings of the plot to considered thought, and that’s just fine.  The sense of being alongside the protagonists as they’re following suspects, interrogating them, being tempted to step over whatever line it is seperates us from those we define as enemies, is brilliantly achieved.

More than anything, Spooks is a kind of 21st century morality play, that happens to wear the trappings of an action thriller.  No accident then, that its writers include old school political dramatists such as Howard Brenton.  It’s a fine show, and I’d say an important one, bringing issues alive more than the news media manages to for the most part, and with audiences willing to come along for the ride.