The top 11 TV spy series of all time and Slow Horses is beaten to top spot

11. Homeland

Based on the Israeli TV series Prisoners of War, this superior spy thriller largely set in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the USA, starred Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA operative with bipolar disorder. It revolved initially around Mathison’s relationship with Damian Lewis’s Sgt Nicholas Brady, a US Marine and former al-Qaeda hostage turned US Congressman who she suspected had been turned by the terrorists. When Brady died, at the end of season three, the drama evolved into a kind of Mystic Meg of espionage, correctly predicting evils such as fake news, Islamist attacks on European cities, Moscow meddling with elections, and more. The show ran for nine years, powered by cliff-hangers and terrific characters including Carrie’s agency mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patikin) and Rupert Friend’s John, aka Peter Quinn, a CIA paramilitary who described himself as “the guy who kills bad guys”. Carrie was a terrific character, erratic, intuitive and often chaotic, although many viewers, including me, were transfixed by Clare Danes’s ever-changing facial expressions.

10. Reilly, Ace Of Spies

Real life wartime spy Sidney Reilly was the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond, although Bond’s onscreen character was better-looking and less black-hearted. Reilly, born Shlomo Rosenblum in Ukraine in the early 1870s, managed to con British Intelligence into believing he was an Irishman from Clonmel and became one of the service’s greatest assets. Reilly infiltrated the German Army’s General Staff in 1917 and masterminded a failed plot to overthrow Lenin’s Bolshevik government in 1918. The British press called him The Master Spy. Sam Neill played the daring double-dealer in this 1983 series, made by Euston Films for ITV. Written by Troy Kennedy Martin, it was based on the 1967 book Ace Of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart, whose father was one of Riley’s fellow agents. Neill’s performance and the production values were excellent, although the series itself felt a little uneven. Like Bond, Sidney Reilly was charismatic, multilingual, highly sexed, and a compulsive gambler. He was also as charming or lethal as circumstances dictated.

Commander Ian Fleming had been a desk-bound intelligence officer and PA to the Director of Naval Intelligence during World War Two. In the role, he liaised closely with agencies involved in espionage and learnt about his department’s history in World War One. He befriended former diplomat Robert Bruce Lockhart who had worked with Reilly on the attempted Russian coup, and soaked up his stories. Bond’s 007 codename came from the real-life cracking of the Germans’ diplomatic code, 0070. Another wartime contact Charles Fraser-Smith inspired Major Boothroyd, aka Bond’s ‘Q’. Put simply, no Reilly, no Bond.

9. The Night Manager

This lavishly shot John le Carré adaptation was a huge hit for the BBC on its first outing in 2016. Ten million watched its thrilling finale. Directed by Susanne Bier, it starred Tom Hiddleston as an ex-soldier turned Cairo hotel manager Jonathan Pine who was recruited by Foreign Office operative Angela Burr (Olivia Colman). Pine’s risky mission was to infiltrate the inner circle of amoral arms dealer Richard “Dicky” Roper (“the worst man in the world”), played by Hugh Laurie. Tom Hollander sparkled as Roper’s scene-stealing sidekick Major Lance “Corky” Corcoran, and the late John le Carré made a cameo appearance in episode four. Series one was mesmerising. It rolled the story out slowly, allowing viewers to bask in beautiful jet-set locations, filmed largely in Majorca – a far cry from the dark, forbidding skies of le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It also and made a star of willowy Elizabeth Debicki (later Princess Diana in The Crown), as love interest Jemima “Jed” Marshall who cheated on the shadowy Roper with Jonathan.

Ten years later, season two aims to duplicate the success of its slick successor, without Roper and Corcoran (Roper was jailed, and Pine beat suspicious Corky to death). The current series is not a book adaptation. Le Carré wrote just Jonathan Pine book and felt the story should end there, although the producers say he changed his mind before he died. Consequently, the new story largely riffs on what had gone before, with the stunning Roxana (Camila Morrone), a drug dealer’s moll, serving hopefully as Pine’s new love interest in equally sumptuous locations. Pine is still suave but has changed his name to Alex Goodwin, of the Night Owls – a surveillance wing of MI6. So far, following the murder of intelligence officer Rex Mayhew (Douglas Hodge), Pine/Goodwin had gone rogue in his quest for revenge, getting two of his owls bumped off in the process. It still looks splendid. There are lashings of champagne and cocaine; and the promise of sex abounds. But to paraphrase how Corky felt about Pine, I’m not sure about series two yet. I think the Beeb might be stringing us along.

8. Man In A Suitcase

When Patrick McGoohan walked away from Danger Man to make The Prisoner in 1967, he took many of the crew with him. The ones who remained, including producer Sidney Cole, worked on a new show, then called McGill – like McGoohan’s hits, an ITC production for ITV. US method actor Richard Bradford played McGill (aka Mac) a hard-nosed agent who had lost his job in mysterious circumstances and was left fighting to preserve his sense of self in a kind of bleak limbo during the Cold War years. In an episode called Man From The Dead, we learnt that Mac was genuinely innocent, and had been set up by a CIA boss to protect a mole in Soviet intelligence. Bradford was superb as this tough-guy casualty of official cunning, an ex-spy dogged by his past and plagued by unknown enemies. Although he was very much a ladies’ man, Mac ended each episode alone – emphasising his plight. He was like The Fugitive turned private eye, making his living solving cases and doing odd jobs. When a woman called him ‘a cheap, prying, flat-footed peephole specialist’, Mac retorted, ‘I’m not cheap.’

The show, the most violent of its era, ran for 30 episodes and was seen as the antithesis of the more avant-garde The Prisoner. It also saw the 1968 directorial debut of future James Bond director John Glen, and a roll-call of acting greats including Donald Sutherland, Colin Blakeley, and Philip Madoc.

7. Spooks

This fast-paced and stylish BBC1 drama revolved around unfeasibly glamorous MI5 operatives working out of Thames House in London. It ran for ten series from 2002 and 2011 using the slogan ‘MI5, not 9 – 5’, and made household names of stars like Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, and Peter Firth, later adding Nicola Walker, Hermione Norris, and Robert Glenister, among others. Made in the shadow of 9/11, Spooks was haunted by bomb plots and terrorist threats. Youngsters like Macfadyen’s Tom Quinn contrasted with Firth’s world-weary Sir Harry Pearce, KBE – the head of MI5’s counter-terrorism department (section D). Spooks – retitled MI5 in the US – grabbed viewers immediately, making headlines with the shockingly memorable murder of Lisa Faulkner’s junior case officer Helen Flynn, who was killed by a bullet in the back of the head after having her face shoved into a deep-fat fryer. Many more would perish along the way.

Although soapier than most spy thrillers it was a ratings winner for nine years. Unusually, it was the show’s independent production company Kudos who called time on the drama rather than the BBC. They decided to end the series “in its prime”, and did so with a sensational series of plots-within-plots, and even a micro-cameo from Macfadyen’s Quinn. It finished with Harry clashing repeatedly with the British Home Secretary (Simon Russell Beale) as the Yanks demanded his head over the death of a CIA agent sprung from American custody by MI5. This final series was marred by a hugely unlikely proposed political partnership between Russia and the UK but was brightened up by more backstabbing and betrayals than a bad week in Westminster. Alice Krige dazzled as Elena, the icy Russian double agent who turned out to be a little bit more than that…