TV's Top Spy Shows Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Night Manager

"The Night Manager" was a 1993 novel by John le Carré, a prolific author on espionage.

The book, and the 2016 British TV series on which it was based, focussed on an undercover security asset infiltrating the organisation of an international arms dealer.

This was a step away from the usual le Carré formula of writing about international espionage. David John Moore Cornwell - to give his birth name - should have known what he was talking about: he had worked for both of the UK's main espionage organisations, MI5 and MI6.

Incidentally, the first spy novel is credited as being "The Spy", published in 1821 by James Fenimore Cooper. Its main character Harvey Birch was, it has been claimed, based on a real life American spy of the Revolutionary Wars.

Answer: Alias

Jennifer Garner played double-agent Sydney Bristow in a sophisticated and well received US drama series.

Five seasons of "Alias" ran from September 2001. Garner played a CIA agent who infiltrated an international crime and espionage ring.

As the series developed, viewers came to know that Bristow's mother had been an agent for he KGB.

Answer: Deutschland 83

First shown on German television in 2015, "Deutschland 83" was the story of an agent of East Germany's espionage service sent to West Germany to infiltrate military intelligence there. It was set in 1983.

The show was picked up by television stations in the UK and the USA and won an International Emmy Award.

Two follow-ups were made, "Deutschland 86" and "Deutschland 89".

Answer: 24

Nine seasons of "24" were broadcast from 2001. It starred Kiefer Sutherland as an agent of the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU).

The CTU's function was to disrupt the work of criminal and terrorist organisations, and each episode took up one hour of a day's activities, adding up to the whole day over the 24-episodes season.

Answer: The Bureau

Five seasons of "Le Bureau" were broadcast on French television from 2015 and it was eventually shown in more than 100 countries.

The story starred Guillaume Debaill as an agent for the French external intelligence service, DGSE, who returned home after several years undercover in the Middle East. His new task was to prepare a new agent for undercover work, but he fell deeply in love with her.

Writing for "GQ" magazine in 2021, Chris Cohen was of the opinion: "What 'The Wire' did for the cop show, the French drama 'Le Bureau' is doing for the 21st-century espionage drama."

Answer: Homeland

Eight seasons of "Homeland" were broadcast in the USA from 2011. It was based on an Israeli show, "Prisoners of War.

Claire Danes and Damian Lewis led the cast in the US show. Lewis played a US congressman who had been a US Marine Corps sniper held prisoner by al-Qaeda in the Middle East. Danes was a former top CIA officer who was convinced Lewis had been 'turned' by the terror group.

The show won 35 awards, including several Primetime Emmys.

Answer: The Americans

Six seasons of "The Americans" were broadcast from 2013. Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys played a married couple living a quiet life, but in reality they were sleeper agents for the Soviet Union's KGB.

The show was set in the 1980s, at a time when the couple had been in place, unactivated, for some 20 years. The story was, in part, based on a real Soviet sleeper ring in the USA. The show won 26 awards, including Primetime Emmys and Golden Globes.

Answer: Spooks

"M15, not 9 to 5" was the tagline of a British TV show in which even the heroes were not safe from meeting a grizzly end.

Ten seasons of the show were broadcast from 2002 on British television. It was also picked up by broadcasters in France, the USA and Canada. A movie was released in 2015.

The main characters were agents of Britain's internal espionage organisation, formally known as the Security Service, but colloquially known as MI5. The show dealt with the threats faced by the UK from espionage and terrorism. Several popular characters were killed off during the long run.

"Spook" came to be used as a shorthand reference to a spy from the middle of the 20th Century.

Answer: The Man from UNCLE

"The Man from UNCLE" was greatly assisted by the telegenic Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.

Made by MGM in the USA and shown on the BBC in the United Kingdom, the show ran from 1964 to 1968.

UNCLE was an acronym for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Robert Vaughn played the American agent Napoleon Solo and David McCallum the Russian Illya Kuryakin.

Their main enemies were in the criminal organisation THRUSH. Although the acronym was never spelt out in the TV show, in a spin-off book it was detailed as The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.

Bonus interesting information: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appeared together in an episode many years before they were in 'Star Trek.'

Answer: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The second adaptation of a John le Carré novel in this list. Alec Guinness played George Smiley as a spy catcher with MI6, Britain's overseas espionage service.

The show was a critical success and attracted a large audience, albeit there was little opposition to the BBC show as programmes on the the rival ITV network had been decimated by industrial action.

The portrayal of Smiley by Alex Guinness was described as "one of the greatest performances ever seen on the small screen". It was not without its critics, though. Veteran reviewer Clive James writing in 'The Observer' said "Though not quite as incomprehensible [as the novel], it was equally turgid."

Reviewers of the 2011 big screen adaptation, which starred John Hurt as Smiley, called it one of "the most boring" movies ever made. [This quiz writer, a fan of the espionage genre, finds it difficult to disagree with these views.]