I can imagine Spy Like Me as a TV series, specifically one of those TV series where there is deliberate change over time and you don’t end up endlessly restarting from zero with each episode.

The episodes are just a step or two away from scripts. The description is just enough to imagine the scene, and much of the story is told through dialogue.

I read most stories in season one and skimmed through a few in season two. From what I see there, there is an overall plot that is slowly developing. For better or for worse, the form of the story (TV series) means that that overall plot seldom gets direct attention in any given episode. Much of the first season introduces elements of that plot. You only get to see the shape of it in the last episodes.

The characterization also suffers from that format choice in that it’s a little hard to delve into an individual character. A script-like style means that you can’t hear any individual’s thoughts. Similarly, an ensemble cast of characters (most of whom you see in each episode) means that you don’t spend a great deal of time with each one.

It’s not that the characters are wooden. They’re defined (and consistent). It’s just that I still don’t really feel that I know them nor am I strongly attached to them. Also, Sonja seems right to comment that their behavior was more like teenagers than twenty-somethings.

I’ll echo Sonja’s review again here and note that she’s also right that the writer often interprets a character’s statements and actions for the reader. Removing those interpretations would make the story stronger.

I’d like to add though that personally, I could use a little more length in descriptions of scenes and transitions from one group of characters to another. Though most scenes are set off by horizontal lines (which works), the writer occasionally has characters split off within a particular scene, giving less than a line of text to hint that that is the case.

I found that confusing.

On other matters, there were minor matters of realism that similarly snapped me out of the story. First, characters from the CIA show up doing a domestic operation. Unfortunately, the CIA doesn’t do domestic operations (without starting a massive scandal). Domestic intelligence work is done by the FBI.

Second, in one episode, the characters go to Germany after breakfast and come back by supper time. That can’t happen unless they’ve got a private jet (that’s faster than sound) or a teleportation device.

Third, a character does a roundhouse kick inside a train. The roundhouse is a bad choice inside small spaces since you swing the leg around. Mind you, it’s possible that there’s more space in the train car than I was imagining.

None of these minor errors makes the story bad, but they don’t help it.

The author does many things right. The plot has a direction (though it’s not obvious at the beginning). The characters have defined personalities (though more development would help). The writing needs some revision, but is decent.

So basically, flawed, but with potential.

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I had high hopes when I looked at the front page of Spy Like Me.  The layout was clean, with a page of all the characters, complete with pictures of pretty celebrities.  That’s always fun.  I did miss navigation links to go onwards to the next episode, but that’s easily fixed.

[more . . .]

I like how this story is presented as if it were a TV series with popular actors visually "cast" into the major roles and the episodes arranged into seasons. 

If this were a TV series on, perhaps, CW or the WB network, I probably wouldn’t watch it because it’s just not my style. But this story is so interchangeable with some of those that it’s easy to imagine an alternate universe where "Spy Like Me" is on TV every Monday night and "One Tree Hill" was only ever a web series—and maybe that would be a better world in which to live.

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