Spooks (series 3)
The third series of "Spooks" was produced by Kudos Film and Television for the BBC. Much of the production crew from the first two series returned. New crew members were brought in with the requirement that they were fans of the series and have ambition, so that they can understand "Spooks". Andrew Woodhead was the series producer, with Jane Featherstone, Simon Crawford Collins and Gareth Neame as executive producers. Collins, who was the producer for the first two series, had to step back to executive producer, as he was overcommitted producing Kudos crime series "Hustle". Woodhead replaced him as he was accustomed to the show, but also added more vitality to the show. Christopher Aird was the assistant producer. The third series included five writers. Howard Brenton wrote the first, second and eighth episodes. Rupert Walters wrote the third and ninth episodes. Ben Richards wrote the fourth, sixth and tenth episodes. Richards previously wrote the ninth episode of series two, and accepted the offer to return. His script in the second series was his first script for television; he found writing easier as time went by. Raymond Khoury wrote the seventh episode. Series creator David Wolstencroft wrote the fifth episode. Wolstencroft was poised to write the next episode, but found himself committed to other projects.
On the Brink (Spooks)
The episode was written by Christian Spurrier, his first writing credit for the series. He joined the "Spooks" writing staff in January 2008. Producer Katie Swinden wanted to base an episode on the economy, which at the time was facing a recession following the financial crisis of the British bank Northern Rock just months before. After trying a few different stories, the producers settled on a story about a bank collapse that is so severe it could result in an economic collapse. Spurrier did research on banking climate in the City of London in March 2008, and realised the economy was going down, but also wanted to exaggerate the numbers for the episode. Ros was chosen to lead because the character had a background in business. In some of the original drafts of the episode, John Castle would return as Jocelyn Myers, Ros' father, but later on the producers realised they did not need him. The producers also wanted to include some jeopardy in the climax, namely adding a gun to a head or a bomb, which created the scenes where Darlek threatened to kill Ros. Spurrier felt he had a "lot of juggling" in writing three separate storylines; the main plot, the Sugarhorse subplot and Jo; but did a lot of learning how to write a "Spooks" script as he wrote it.