Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spycraft’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About How Espionage Has Developed Over The Decades

You may not be a spy or aspire to be a spy, but spycraft is certainly something you may be interested in. It makes sense; the most creative minds figure out different ways of collecting intelligence and stay undetected. And the race to do it better, faster, and with more stealth has been going on for at least a century, at least when it comes to modern espionage. A new Netflix docuseries examines the different ways countries spy on each other.

SPYCRAFT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of people watching and performing surveillance. Narrator Dylan Berry says “Spies conduct surveillance to learn their enemies secrets.”

The Gist: Spycraft is an 8-part docuseries, run by executive producer Maria Wye Berry, that examines the different ways countries have spied on each other and gathered intelligence over the decades. Different methods are examined in each episode, from poisoning enemies to “sexpionage” to good old covert operations. Stock footage is combined with reenactments and expert interviews to paint the picture of how intelligence-gathering has changed in a lot of ways over the years, but in many ways is done the same way it’s always been done.

The first episode discusses High-tech surveillance, including different bugging devices that have been used by the U.S., Russia and China over the years. The level of creativity and ingenuity displayed is remarkable, from a microphone planted into an ambassador’s shoe to a listening device that required no electricity to work. Another listening device was put in a projectile and shot into a tree from long range.

Another type of surveillance the episode examines is “eye in the sky” surveillance, mostly with drones. As drones have gotten more sophisticated, its cameras have been able to follow more people with higher resolution than ever before. Finally, the experts discuss how, in China, cameras mounted in the streets can track every citizen’s movements and give people a “social score” that can affect how easy it is for people to get jobs and other major things.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Spycraft goes over some of the same ground as A&E’s Spy Wars.

Our Take: Spycraft just sticks to facts, and that’s what makes the show so refreshing to watch. It’s not interested in much in the way of analysis or making things more dramatic. It relies on the facts of each example they give, and does so in a compact, fast-moving package that keeps viewers engaged.

If you’re looking for an in-depth discussion of various methods and technologies, you won’t get that here. This is a fast-moving show, with different methods given the highlight treatment, with the supporting help of various retired experts weighing in. In the first episode, something you may notice about those experts are that they’re in the “old White guy” category, which is a fact of American life, even if it’s a troubling one. Those are the people that have been historically in charge of the U.S.’s espionage programs, so those are the people who are going to get interviewed.

The reenactments on the show aren’t as bothersome as we’ve seen elsewhere (like the recently-released The Night Caller), but they’re still there. We’d imagine that the degree of irritating these recreations will be will have a lot to do with the topic — we bet the one about sex as an espionage tool will have a bunch of irritating reenactments. For the most part, though, the reenactments are unobtrusive.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: “Through knowledge, intelligence services will become ever more efficient at spying, as well as catching spies,” says intelligence expert Keith Melton.

Sleeper Star: No one stands out.

Most Pilot-y Line: A bit less stock footage would have been more useful, but we understand why firsthand footage may have been tough to come by.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’re looking for some fascinating insight into some of the ways America and other countries get their intel, Spycraft should scratch that itch, even if it’s not the most detailed series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Spycraft On Netflix