One of the the best spy TV shows that I have ever seen was Smiley's People. It starred Sir Alec Guiness (Obi Wan) and was based on a book by John le Carre. It was first released in the early 1980s. It is on Youtube for those of you who are interested.

Like Smiley's People, "The Night Manager" is also based on a John le Carre book. It is also 6 episodes long. I've seen the first 3 episodes on a streaming site (whose link I obviously can't reveal) and I think it gives Smiley's People a run for its money.

The first episode will be broadcast in the United States on April 19, 2016. It already has had 3 episodes out in Britain.

It stars Tom Hiddleston (who plays Loki in the movies Thor and the Avengers; he is also in the running to be the next James Bond) and Hugh Laurie (who used to play the title character in the long running series "House M.D." as well as Veep)

I hope you guys watch The Night Manager.

what is it about THO

As far as I can tell, from watching 10 mins of episode 1, it is about a posh hotel manager in Cairo, around 2011.

Hotel manager (who is a former British soldier) of a high end Egyptian hotel during the "Arab Spring" gets recruited by the CIA and MI-6 to infiltrate the organization of the world's top arms dealer.

Its a realistic style spy story, not James Bond or Jason Bourne.

really looking forward to this

sounds interesting, i'll check it out

Le Carrè's books are usually a tough read, but the really translate to the screen really well. I'm looking forward to this.

Episode 3 might be the most stupid episode in tv history.

what about ep 1 and 2?

Episode 4 is brilliant.

I don't know what to think about what just happened.

Really high quality production with great performances, but I just didn't feel like the material was very good.

Never heard of Alex Guinness, good to have a name to the guy who played Obi-Wan.

I thought the ending was full of the usual movie clichés. First few episodes were great then it sort of slid off a cliff a bit. Not terrible as a whole but something to watch once perhaps, 6.5/10.

For anyone in the mood for a great spy TV series check out Le Carre's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", and the follow up "Smiley's People". The cleverest TV there has ever been. I think they can be found on You Tube. I rate them as the greatest TV series ever made.

The 2011 Tinker Tailor film with Gary Oldman/Tom Hardy is really good too, the series is only better because it has more time to work with.

What is this on in the US?

Hope it's as good as the book was.

It's airing in the US on AMC. First episode was last night.

I love le Carré, but so far it seems pretty meh. Based on how few posts there for a miniseries where every episode is available, I'm guessing the rest of it ends up meh too.

It was watchable..definitely picked up when Laurie finally arrived

Completely missed this, thanks for the post. Gonna have a look this weekend.

first episode was basically a cheesier slower bond movie intro with worst dialogue

They really overdid the closeups of him emoting to every situation. I'll give it another week or two. It's only 6 episodes. Maybe it'll pick up.

Agree with this. Not enough time/buildup was spent on Sophie for me to care for her. I know nothing about how television shows are filmed from a technical standpoint, but something was off-putting about this ep. I can't really explain it; like it was made 5-10 years ago. Perhaps it's just me.

Is there any chance we can spoiler tag the posts in the this thread that talk about the ending? Tough spot since it's been aired in other parts of the world already, but it would suck for someone to accidentally read them (I almost did).

there's no spoilers anywhere in this thread that i see, even my spoilered comment isn't anything bad

I just saw a beginning of a post that started talking about the ending and just ignored the rest. My bad if there are no spoilers in it.

Just watched the first one and enjoyed it. Looking forward to watching the rest this week.

Fun fact: The three main male cast members (Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Tom Hollander) all went to The Dragon School, a very fancy prep school in Oxford.

Just binged the first 5 episodes, wow.

Didn't realize A Most Wanted Man was also le Carre. That one is also money.

Yeh I'm just about to watch last one too. Really loving it.

Tom Hollander's gay lawyer was fantastic. My only issue is Hugh Laurie, although obviously evil, is so damn charming he's kind of won me over...