10 Spectacularly Bad TV Ideas That Turned Out To Be Awesome

4. Spooks

Way back before it was cool to kill leading characters at random, Spooks started. Since that point Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and even the currently airing Line of Duty have made a point of no character being safe despite how much they feature in the show's promotion or how famous they are. In the case of Spooks all the promotion focused on a main character who was a nice young lady finding her way in the spy business with her more experienced colleagues. Lisa Faulkner was playing the character in question, and she was popular and well-known due to her roles in Brookside and Holby City. At this point in time character deaths were rarer. When lead characters did depart shows they did so with much fanfare and drama in order to maximise ratings and publicity. Alternatively their deaths were complete fake outs and the character was restored by the following week or season (hey Dallas, take a bow). Spooks was different. Recognising the potential of keeping the audience completely gripped and presenting an environment where no one was safe the producers went for the jugular. The first episode was screened and Helen Flynn played by Lisa Faulkner was introduced. The second episode she had her hand and head stuck in a deep fat fryer before getting a bullet through the brain. Welcome to Spooks. No-one was safe and many characters went the same way, through hangings, murders, bombings, throat-slashings, poisonings or just plain old-fashioned shooting. Needless to say, Spooks ran for ten very successful series. But oh the complaints. Oh the outrage. Oh the ratings! Who else can we kill? Television open season was declared!