# Tell me a secret...agent show you like **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [October 2, 2020, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005 "2020-10-02T02:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/1 "2020-10-02T02:14:34Z")
Spies have been infiltrating television shows around the world for many decades now-our spies, their spies, bad spies and good spies. Do you have any favorites? Just whisper in my ear, and it’ll be our little secret. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/2 "2020-10-02T02:46:32Z")
_ **The Avengers** _, of course. _ **Danger Man/Secret Agent** _. _ **The Prisoner** _. _ **The Man from UNCLE.** _ _ **Get Smart.** _ _ **Mission: Impossible.** _ _ **The Americans.** _ One I saw recently on board an LOT airliner: _ **Illegals** _, an excellent Polish series filmed in four different languages (with English subtitles). ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/3 "2020-10-02T02:51:28Z")
_ **24** _, if we can consider that a secret agent show. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/4 "2020-10-02T02:54:02Z")
I liked the smooth patter and no nonsense roughness of **I Spy**. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/5 "2020-10-02T03:05:05Z")
**The Prisoner**. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/6 "2020-10-02T03:06:17Z")
There was one in the '60s that I really liked: _ **Blue Light** _, where Robert Goulet was an American double agent inside Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, it lasted only 13 episodes, IIRC. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/7 "2020-10-02T03:06:23Z")
FWIW, [here](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls041385132/) is IMDB’s " Top 100 Spy & Espionage TV Shows". ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/8 "2020-10-02T03:07:50Z")
I should mention _ **The Wild, Wild West** _ as well. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/9 "2020-10-02T03:08:21Z")
We still wonder how it happened, because we usually encouraged our grade school aged kids to watch intelligent, challenging television, buuuut… as soon as **ALIAS** came on, the kids would jump in our bed and giggle whenever Sydney Bristow dropkicked a bad guy. Recently rewatched it on Netflix, and it holds up. Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper are great as friends, and Victor Garber makes a wonderful “Spy Dad”. Later, my kids returned the favor and got me watching **BURN NOTICE**. Which I like mostly for the voiceover. (As someone said of the book _Beat the Reaper_ by Josh Bazell, if you’re intrigued by a hit man who, as he’s attacked by a gangster, pauses to tell the reader about how the elbow is constructed and how he’s about to deconstruct it.) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/10 "2020-10-02T03:17:34Z")
I loved both _ **Reilly: Ace of Spies** _ and _ **Foyle’s War** _. Most of the others on the Top 100 list I have yet to see (except for the ones I’ve already listed). ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/11 "2020-10-02T04:47:11Z")
I like British espionage TV shows such as The Sandbaggers, Callan and MI-5. > **[The Sandbaggers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > The Sandbaggers is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, The Sandbaggers examines the effect of espionage on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists. The series was produced by Yorkshire Television, based in Leeds. > Neil D. Burnside (Roy Marsden) is Director of Operations... > **[Callan (TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callan_(TV_series))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Callan is a British action-drama spy television series created by James Mitchell, first airing between 1967 and 1972. It starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, an agent of a state secret service dealing with internal security threats to the United Kingdom. Though portrayed as having responsibilities similar to those of the real-life MI5, Callan's fictional "Section" has carte blanche to use the most ruthless of methods. In the storylines inte... > **[MI-5 (TV Series 2002–2011) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160904/?ref_=ttls_li_tt)** > > MI-5: Created by David Wolstencroft. With Peter Firth, Hugh Simon, Nicola Walker, Rupert Penry-Jones. The missions of MI-5, the UK's domestic intelligence organization. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/12 "2020-10-02T05:33:04Z")
_Chuck_ of course! Completely silly nerdy nonsense that made me smile consistently for five years. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/13 "2020-10-02T05:35:54Z")
The answer to this question is “Human Target”. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/14 "2020-10-02T05:48:32Z")
I have to put in a word for the 1979 TV series of John le Carré’s _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_, with Alec Guinness. It’s rated #7 on IMDb’s top 100 list, and the sequel _Smiley’s People_ #6. Realistic, slow, unglamorous, tense. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pq61jstTApk/maxresdefault.jpg "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Episode 1") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq61jstTApk) ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/15 "2020-10-02T06:09:00Z")
Others I like have been mentioned or are on the list. One not mentioned is _Killing Eve._ ---
**Author:** ![And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/and_his_buzzer_goes/32/377_2.png) [@And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/And_his_buzzer_goes)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/16 "2020-10-02T10:52:04Z")
[The Spy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spy_(TV_series)) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/17 "2020-10-02T11:05:07Z")
Definitely _The Sandbaggers_. The most realistic spy show ever. It ignored the cliches of the genre and never made things easy for the characters, who many times failed in their mission. Roy Marsden was spectacularly good. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/18 "2020-10-02T11:52:20Z")
Get Smart A similar British show starring David Jason, [Top secret life of Edgar Briggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Top_Secret_Life_of_Edgar_Briggs). Deutschland 83, 86 and 89 form an impressive and always watchable story arc. And big votes for Tinker, Tailor and Smiley’s People ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/19 "2020-10-02T12:21:05Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > **The Prisoner**. Having heard about this show my whole life, I purchased the Blu-ray set containing every episode and watched all of them. A _great_ series, though there were a couple episodes that I thought were stinkers. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005/20 "2020-10-02T12:31:15Z")
Thanks to this thread and the fact I’m on holiday through Thursday next week (China’s “Golden Week” holiday), I’m binge-watching the series now on YouTube. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-a-secret-agent-show-you-like/922005.md?page=2)