Formula telly (2)

So last night it's The Game, and it's over. Big sigh of relief, really. It was interesting, trying to give us a detailed picture of old style Cold War espionage, when it's been done so thoroughly by Le Carre. This wasn't a patch on that, though they'd clearly spent huge amounts of time and money trying to get the look of it right, striving for the quality of film rather than standard TV. Which is fine, if you've got the script to support it. But this was so full of improbabilities that suspending disbelief was simply impossible. In this tangled denouement, for instance, a dogged secretary spends the night working through cardboard files (no computer in sight) and manages to come up with six deeply hidden soviet spies embedded in British life, hitherto unsuspected by anyone in the department. Wow. she must be smart. Put her in charge straight away. Or, tear up the script  and don't put in the camera and acting work until you've got a story we can believe in.