You won’t find James Bond or Ethan Hunt here: these TV spies are troubled, even irresponsible — but compelling

If we were to go by the blockbuster spy films released over the past 20 years — think franchises like James Bond and “Mission: Impossible” — we’d have a uniform archetype for the spy, so uniform that we could treat him as a proper noun.
The Spy is an international man, not out of place in any of the world’s capital cities; he is a class chameleon, able to navigate both the slums and the upper echelons of his milieu of choice. He is prescient, possessing a sixth sense for traps, and is as apt at hand-to-hand combat as he is with technology; if he lacks any skills himself, he is surrounded by a team that covers his shortcomings, few though they may be.
Television, on the other hand, has long taken a different approach to stories about these undercover agents. On our TV screens we are more accustomed to seeing spies stumbling than succeeding: TV’s go-to undercover protagonist is one battling personal demons and, at their lowest point, demoted and discredited.
“Homeland,” perhaps the most high profile spy series from the previous decade, follows agents who are regularly struggling with mental health issues, both due to and irrespective of their work. Similarly, “Killing Eve,” which starred Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer as an MI5 agent and an assassin obsessed with one another, mined intrigue from its characters’ pathology as much as their cat-and-mouse chase.
This fall’s TV schedule sees this trend alive and well. With series from Apple TV Plus, Netflix and Paramount, we’re treated to agents who are regularly unethical and irresponsible when handling their assignments; some allow their personal grievances to hold their attention while others grow so obsessed with their targets they jeopardize the safety of those around them.
Take for instance MI6 agent Bianca Pullman in Peacock’s “The Day of the Jackal,” the latest adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s novel of the same name. In its first episode, Bianca (Lashana Lynch) works to capture an assassin named the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne). In order to strong-arm one of her contacts into helping her in her search, she organizes a false arrest of the contact’s daughter, leading to her death in custody. It’s a tough development to watch and one that creates a complicated portrait of a figure who purportedly fights on the side of justice and the law.
In “Black Doves,” a Netflix spy series premiering Dec. 5, spy Helen Webb (Keira Knightley) digs herself deeper into a complex international conspiracy when she sets out to avenge the murder of her secret lover. To track her beau’s assassin, she enlists the help and expertise of someone in a similar position, assassin Sam Young (Ben Whishaw), who did not leave his former profession unscathed. Both Webb and Young are faced with increasingly perilous situations as they attempt to balance personal desires against societal responsibility.
Then there’s “The Agency,” which focuses on the mystery surrounding Martian (Michael Fassbender), a covert CIA agent, and his former flame Sami (Jodie Turner-Smith), who suddenly and forcefully re-enters his life after he returns home from an undercover assignment.
With his life in disarray, not solely due to Sami’s return, we’re never quite sure of Martian’s allegiances — we’re treated only to his code name at first — nor why he was taken off his previous assignment. Fassbender’s spy is illusive and chimerical, forcing us to wonder whether the conspiracy he is embroiled in is in service to himself or part of some larger design. It makes for a disorienting, thrilling series, which is set to premiere on Paramount Plus Friday.
Martian’s personal quandary is similar to one faced by River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) in the fourth season of Apple TV’s “Slow Horses,” which aired in October.
River, an impulsive though gifted agent, is tasked, for the first time in the series, with reckoning with his past — specifically, his parentage — culminating in the show’s strongest season. River is forced to parse the imperfect allegiances in his life: those to his family and the MI5 organization, both of whom have abandoned him in their own ways.
This compelling quartet — Bianca, Helen, “Martian” and River — appearing within weeks, if not days, of one another is an indication that television is increasingly interested in examining the limitations of characters’ personal agency. And the fact that this examination of the human spirit is so apparent in spy thrillers is even more telling.
It’s a humanist approach to a sub-genre that often sees its protagonists dehumanized, working as cogs in larger machines and carrying out orders unquestioningly for higher-ups. In these series, the spy agencies — whether MI6 or the CIA — are not to be inherently trusted and are often engaged in their own power struggles.
This is not to say that film franchise heroes like James Bond or Ethan Hunt are never tasked with fighting their superiors; rather, that TV largely places more importance on individualistic growth than large-scale set pieces and fight scenes.
You’ll certainly get riveting action from “The Day of the Jackal,” “Black Doves” and “The Agency,” but it’s the way in which individual persistence is pitted against organizational conspiracy that truly marks the thrills of the respective shows. Our spies are tasked with juggling their own ambitions and desires in opposition to the status quo — and though they often stumble and err, they make for fascinating subjects to watch week after week.
“The Day of the Jackal” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Showcase and can be streamed at StackTV. “The Agency” debuts with two episodes Nov. 29 on Paramount Plus with Showtime. “Black Doves” debuts Dec. 5 on Netflix. “Slow Horses” can be streamed on Apple TV Plus.