s3276169 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.

Prismark10 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.

AgentFalco I don't write many reviews but felt compelled after finishing watching this last night to warn others. How can such an interesting period of history be made into such an incredibly boring film. I felt no empathy for most of the characters which is ridiculous by the end I just didn't care. There was no chemistry between the two leads played by David Tennant and Janet Montgomery and Janet's character Anna in particular annoyed me and I didn't understand what Jean-Francois saw in her to make him so enamoured of her. At one point when Jean-Francois was in a deep depression because he was separated from his love I thought I was watching Twilight without the fun vampires! The only characters who felt conveyed the sadness of the war and the despair that was felt by so many as Nazi Germany began its move across the world was the old couple Viktor and Malka Rosen beautifully acted by Linda Bassett and Allan Corduner. I would only recommend to die-hard David Tennant fans.

Mouth Box Spies of Warsaw (BBC Four) was probably meant for BBC1, but then someone at the BBC sat down and watched it.As we know, it's not currently very fashionable for BBC executives to take an interest in BBC programmes, but on this occasion it's just as well one of them looked at it before making the mistake of showing it to a larger audience.Adapted by the usually brilliant Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais from a novel by Alan Furst, the first episode was actually only about ninety minutes long. It felt, however, like it was on the air for about 12 weeks.Even in the first ten minutes one could have timed the action by calendar. Sorry, did I use the word, "action"? Slip of the pen. At one point, near the end of the episode, I found myself asking the question, "Is this still on?" It's difficult to say what happened, the plot being revealed at such a painfully leisurely pace. The gist of it appeared to be that David Tennant – a French spy in bright red pantaloons with stripes down the side – fell very slowly in love with Janet Montgomery, the mistress of a dull, whiskered Russian exile.Then we were very slowly introduced to a mysterious Countess, who very slowly turned out not to be a Countess, and was then very slowly strangled by some Nazis. Oh, there was a brasserie with a bullet-hole in the mirror above table 14. I think this might have been significant in some way. Or maybe it wasn't.There was certainly great attention to period detail, which helped to slow down the action even more. Then there was the usual confusion when it came to who should speak with which accent. The Nazis spoke in German with subtitles in English. The Polish spoke English with Polish accents. The French spoke English with 'Allo 'Allo accents. Everyone spoke very, very, slowly indeed.Tennant was wasted as the enigmatic, complex and conflicted Mercier. He doesn't really do enigmatic and complex, does he? He does quirky and eccentric. About twenty minutes in, he had a stab at being deep and conflicted, but all we really wanted was to see him whip out his sonic screwdriver and pull one of his funny faces.Did I mention that it was quite slow? I still have episode two of Spies of Warsaw on my TIVO. I think it's going to be there for a very, very long time.Read regular TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk