That was an excellent one.

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

1. the script writer did not provide enough information of new cast members when the new cast members 'pop up'. Unless one had read the novel it makes no real sense. So many of the cast seem to be being filmed on their first read through that or the director made no real demands on what skill they 'had' to be cast to begin with.The other is the miscasting esp. of 'Jean-Francoise Mercier as played by David Tennant. He is dull, weak and completely one dimensional in his delivery.The film omitted a major part of the novel, prior to 1st Sept. 1939, where Mercier contacts German 'agents' inside Germany who take a hiking trip into the border region of Germany and Belgium/Luxemborg and document the German panzers 'measuring' the width of the forest roads in the Ardennes for the invasion of June 1940. It was a well crafted passage in the novel and a shame it was not added.It is a shame for the novel is very good but you'd never know it watching this series and sadly it doesn't bode well for future film adaptations of Furst's work

Spies of Warsaw is a clumsily transparent 40's style spy thriller. This is yet another throw back mini series that tries in a very transparent and bumbling manner to recapture a 40's essence, found in films like Casa Blanca. Of course the obvious problem with copying better films, is all sense of originality and creativity is lost. The outcome is a wooden mini series that feels self consciously clichéd and clumsy. The performances of the quality cast are regrettably constrained by the caricatures they are forced to adopt like a poorly fitting set of clothes. Quality actors like David Tennant don't stand a chance to really shine, which is in no way any reflection on their talent. Sad to say, whilst I like the idea behind this series its slavish adherence to a tired formula does it a real disservice. Five out of ten from me.

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are the writing team that wrote the sublime Porridge as well as The Likely Lads. I want to remind people of this just in case someone watched this and thought they were two substandard writers who deserved to be taken to a forest late at night and shot.Spies of Warsaw takes place in the run up to the second world war as various spies from major countries converge in Poland hoping to gain influence in the future of the country. David Tennant plays a French military attaché Colonel Jean-François Mercier who runs a small network of agents and Janet Montgomery as his love interest Anna Skarbek.What should be an interesting tale of espionage, intrigue and love turns out to be dull, flat and uninspired. Its mind numbingly tedious.David Tennant plays his character with a mockney accent. The same accent the Scot used for his Doctor Who. You never at once feel drawn in by any of the characters, care about them or even feel involved with the plot. It even ends on a damp note. Not once did I think we were in Poland or France or Germany. I actually reckoned the drama was shot somewhere in Belfast where they dress buildings up to look unconvincingly like Nazi Germany.Director Coky Giedroyc has to take the blame for bringing such a poor script to screen. Its interesting that he was responsible for shooting the original unaired pilot of 'Sherlock' before it was reworked and an experienced film director became involved and re-shot an expanded story with great success.

What a marvellous 2 parter. The acting and settings were very good indeed. The story moved very nicely, building the appropriate tensions throughout. Based on a novel by Alan Furst, of whom I had never heard, it was historically accurate(with the exception of some British beer mugs in Prague). I hope the makers will give us more of the novels in the same format.The first part was sufficient to make me buy the first of the Night Soldiers novels by Alan Furst. Having already read it, I shall now read the rest of the series, in sequence, so a way to go before I reach Spies of Warsaw.