Get Smart & Chuck would be my top 2.
Archer
Spy shows are ridiculous anyway, might as well get some intentional laughs out of 'em.
I’d also give it a bonus point for the central starting premise:
Sydney — like Marcus Dixon, and who knows how many others — was the sort of person who’d enthusiastically go to to work for the CIA; and a guy (a) who doesn’t actually work for the CIA (b) just showed up and said whatever a CIA recruiter would’ve.
The simplicity of that is a thing of beauty.
Most of mine have already been mentioned.
I’m working my way through Alias again at the moment. It really holds up, surprisingly well. On a big screen HD TV some of the effects now look clunky, some of the “exotic foreign” locations are obviously in L.A., and binge-watching it, on the third or fourth time through the series, some of the plots don’t quite hold together. But it has so much momentum, the acting, directing, editing, and scoring are done just so well, it really carries you on through even the bits that don’t quite work. The show runners displayed a truly astonishing ability to repeatedly jump the shark, blow up the show’s premise, and do an internal soft re-boot, while still maintaining character arcs and the over-arching mystery box plotline. At least up until the last season, where a writer’s strike and having to shoot around the Jennifer Garner’s then burgeoning movie schedule and trying to set up characters to potentially continue the series without her finally knocked the series off of the amazing high-wire act they’d been brilliantly sustaining. Plus, the over-arching plot is a mystery box, and those just usually don’t end well. But up until then, it’s astonishingly good.
I actually didn’t particularly care for Chuck that much when it originally aired, but re-watching it, it is just plain fun. At least the first two seasons or so, before its high concept kinda bogs it down, and it pretty much abandons it by the fourth season. Still, those first two seasons at least are often brilliant.
I loved Burn Notice when it originally aired. I found the voice-over by the main character explaining what he was doing and why fascinating and immersive. Re-watching it recently…it didn’t hold up quite as well for me, personally. The fact that it was fairly low budget basic cable show really came through in a bad way in a number of episodes, and seeing it for the second time, it didn’t seem as innovative or fresh, but I think it probably still would for a first time viewer. Plus, Bruce Campbell!
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet that I really liked was Nikita. No, not that version. Or that one. The one I liked was the CW version, starring Maggie Q. I haven’t re-watched it, so I don’t know how well it would hold up, but at the time, I thought it was a surprisingly well plotted and acted, twisty, turny, combination of “house of mirrors” espionage, paranoid conspiracy and high strangeness conspiracy, and action-adventure spy-fi.
In all of that very lengthy list, including a few 60s spy/action shows, and they couldn’t include The Sandbaggers? I found it interesting, well-written, and it at least looked like they were trying to be realistic. The creator of the show disappearing with his girlfriend in the outer reaches of the Aleutians, under mysterious circumstances, is the icing on the cake.
Usually was on the local PBS station when I was a kid. Broadcasted it the same nights as The Prisoner.
The first four seasons are some of the funniest television ever written.
Yep. The DVR is set to record every episode of Archer that comes on. I don’t care if I’ve seen it 5 times before. It’s still funnier than most of the stuff on elsewhere.
Malory: Is Krieger hard at work?
Sterling: He literally might be, yes.
The secret ingredient is “phone.”
SMOKEBOMB!
A recent one I don’t think was mentioned was Counterpart on the premium cable channel Starz. It had a really weird premise but was very good but sadly cancelled after only two seasons.
And I second the recommendation for MI-5, which was called Spooks when originally aired in the UK.
My choice is “My Own Worst Enemy”. It starred Christian Slater as a man with dual personalities, a secret agent and a family man who were starting to realize the other personality. It aired a few years ago and I really like it.
Any spy thriller shows available now on Netflix or Amazon Prime that I should check out? (Given that I’ve seen and loved almost everything mentioned here so far)?
In addition to the already mentioned Chuck, I’d add Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
Second. Brilliant show, and nearly every episode ended with a big icy chill down my back.
Wife and I watched during maximum quarantine - agree entirely. J. K. Simmons was excellent - took a while get the whole gist of it at the start but things filled in later.
One that is more on the silly side of the secret agent things -
I give you Scifi (before Syfy) Channel’s Invisible Man series. While absolutely wacky, it had fun chemistry between the characters, a willingness to poke fun at itself, and occasional chilling moments where you saw the absolute lack of oversight and willingness to abuse that we often hand-wave away in more serious spy shows.
I loved this show! The best secret agents the Department of Fish and Game, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States Postal Service, and the Bureau of Weights and Measures ever had.
Get Smart
I Spy
The Prisoner
Danger Man - we watched the whole run, and the last couple of seasons told you why Drake resigned. And Number 6 was so Drake, though it could never be admitted, otherwise the creator of Danger Man would get royalties.
And who remembers the deservedly short lived “Secret Life of Henry Phyfe” with Red Buttons?
I saw a spy series on free-to-air TV here, called Whiskey Cavalier. Pretty much in the light-and-fluffy-with-acceptable-action department, but I enjoyed the chemistry between the two leads who were quite likeable (Maggie from Walking Dead, and a guy). It only lasted one season, but wrapped up its loose ends, if not the gaping plot holes, satisfactorily.
Not sure where it would air in the US.