The Agency & The Day of The Jackal Prove James Bond Needs a Prestige TV Series · Primer

Prestige TV has redefined spy thrillers. If Bond doesn’t evolve, the best espionage stories will happen without him.

Recently, I watched The Agency, a remake of a French spy series starring Michael Fassbender. Streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime’s premium tier, it hooked me so completely that I actually paid extra just to finish watching after a free preview on Youtube—something I almost never do, since I’m constantly looking for an excuse to cancel streaming services due to their shallow content libraries.

It proves how long-form storytelling elevates espionage narratives—giving missions time to unfold and characters space to develop in ways a single film never could. These aren’t just action sequences stitched together. They’re strategic, psychological, and relentless.

One of the greatest strengths of The Agency is its commitment to slow-burning tension, meticulous spycraft, and layered deception. The series follows intelligence agents navigating an intricate web of rivalries and betrayals, where operations unfold over weeks, not hours. Watching it, I kept thinking: why hasn’t Bond gotten this treatment?

It came on the heels of watching The Day of the Jackal last fall, starring Eddie Redmayne, which had already set the gears turning. Like The Agency, it reinforced the idea that prestige TV isn’t just another format for spy stories. It’s the best one.

The Mission: Impossible Factor

The Mission: Impossible franchise proves that episodic, action-driven spy adventures can still carry emotional weight, while The Agency excels at grounded psychological complexity and long-term consequences. 

Bond films have always blended globe-trotting adventure with espionage intrigue, but squeezing both into a two-hour runtime forces compromises. The action set pieces don’t build with the increasing intensity of Mission: Impossible‘s stunt-based circus, while the spycraft lacks the suspense depth that prestige dramas can explore over multiple hours.

Bond has the opportunity to be the biggest and name-worthy espionage series possible. It wouldn’t compete with the films. It would deepen the franchise.

Where Bond Films Succeed—And Where They Fall Short

Bond films invented the art of sleek, cinematic spy spectacle. The Shanghai fight sequence in Skyfall, the train brawl in Casino Royale, the Mexico City tracking shot in Spectre—each a showcase of action crafted with precision and style. The problem isn’t execution. It’s format. A two-hour film forces Bond to juggle explosive set pieces and espionage intrigue.

Bond’s tradecraft—the deep-cover assignments, shifting allegiances, and psychological toll—gets reduced to quick montages before the next explosion. A two-hour blockbuster doesn’t have the space for a slow-burning unraveling. That’s where a series has the advantage.

One of The Agency’s strongest storylines follows an intelligence officer extracted from deep cover, only to have his past come crashing into his present. The reappearance of a woman with whom he shared a fabricated romance—a relationship that was real for her but a mission for him—sparks an against-protocol affair. What should have been a professional severance spirals into a crisis of allegiance, with his own agency questioning whether he’s compromised.

This is the kind of internal conflict Bond has always had the potential for but rarely explores with depth. Imagine a Bond series that begins with 007 returning from years undercover, struggling to reacclimate to London—and then running into someone from his past life, someone he was never supposed to see again. A film can touch on this. As The Agency proves, a ten-episode series could live in it.

But a long-form Bond series wouldn’t have to lean entirely into psychological weight and brooding tension. Prestige TV has already proven it can handle espionage storytelling without losing personality.

A great example is Black Doves, starring Ben Whishaw—familiar to Bond fans as Q in the Craig era. Unlike the psychological weight of The Agency or the bureaucratic cynicism of Slow Horses, Black Doves balances espionage intrigue with sharp writing, humor, and personality. What surprised me most was how much real depth it packed into its plot, character development, and ultimate resolution, particularly given its tone. It never felt lightweight or inconsequential, even with its playfulness.

That’s exactly what a Bond series could do. Bond has always thrived on that balance—deadly serious when it needs to be, but never joyless. A prestige TV series wouldn’t have to mimic the tone of The Agency of The Day of the Jackal exactly; it could weave in the sharp dialogue, dry humor, and effortless cool that define Bond at his best, while still delivering meaningful character arcs and weighty espionage storytelling.

That mix of intelligence, tension, and psychological complexity is something the Bond novels have always understood better than the films.

From Russia with Love spends its opening chapters detailing SMERSH’s assassination plot, developing Red Grant’s backstory, and setting up Bond’s downfall before he even appears. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service lingers on Bond’s deep-cover identity as genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, emphasizing the slow realization that Blofeld is ahead of him. Fleming also explores Bond’s emotional cost—Casino Royale shows him questioning his humanity after torture, and From Russia with Love leaves him physically and psychologically wrecked.

These layers in the films, often compressed to a mere nod, or omitted entirely, would thrive in a prestige TV series, allowing the audience to sit with the tension, deception, and psychological weight that define Bond on the page.

The Villain Problem

A great villain doesn’t just threaten Bond. They haunt him.

Bond villains are built to burn bright and fast—big monologues, grandiose plans, then death.

The Day of the Jackal takes the opposite approach. We don’t just hear that the assassin is a master of deception—we watch him build false identities, establish safe houses, manipulate contacts, and stay one step ahead of law enforcement across multiple episodes. The tension isn’t just in whether he’ll succeed—it’s in how much damage he’ll do before they can stop him.

A Bond series could introduce a villain who isn’t just an obstacle. Someone Bond can’t outgun in two hours but must outthink over an entire season. Over time, this villain wouldn’t just threaten Bond; they would corrode him, forcing MI6—and the audience, as The Agency does—to question his loyalty, his judgment, even his sanity.

Bond movies have pulled this off in flashes—Le Chiffre’s poker game in Casino Royale built stakes masterfully—but a prestige TV series could allow for a truly methodical, devastating antagonist. Prestige TV villains don’t just threaten the hero; they dismantle him piece by piece.

MI6: More Than Just a Mission Hub

MI6 in Bond films is a backdrop for exposition, not a battleground. But in a series, it could be a power struggle—rival spies, bureaucratic warfare, and missions shaped as much by internal conflicts as external threats.

The Agency, Jackal, and Slow Horses get this right. Intelligence work isn’t just about field agents; it’s about political maneuvering, shifting alliances, and the fallout of unseen decisions. The Agency, in particular, shows how espionage at the highest levels is built on both trust and deception—not just against adversaries, but within the organization itself. MI6 should feel like a living entity, driven by career operatives with their own agendas.

A Bond series could finally show MI6 as more than a place where M yells at Bond before handing him a new target. Imagine a department where rival factions push conflicting intelligence, where analysts resent field agents, where the politics of espionage matter as much as the missions themselves. A world where MI6 isn’t just reacting to global threats—it’s shaping them.

If Slow Horses can make an entire show about MI5’s misfits and screw-ups, imagine what a Bond series could do with MI6’s elite.

A single film can’t build stakes that last. A Bond series would.

Long-form storytelling allows victories and losses to matter. The Penguin thrives on fallout—betrayals reshape alliances, power struggles shift the board, and no action goes without consequence. It proves that even a once-dismissed caricature can anchor a gripping, layered story—arguably better than the high-budget, prestige Joker film, which still treated its lead as a psychological case study rather than a true power player.

A Bond series could do the same for characters who have spent decades trapped in rigid archetypes. Imagine a version of M, Q, or Moneypenny with full-season arcs, shaped by their own ambitions, rivalries, and past mistakes. Imagine a Bond girl given the narrative weight of a fully realized character rather than a fleeting love interest. Imagine villains who don’t just threaten Bond for two hours but have compelling motivations.

A prestige series wouldn’t just deepen Bond’s world—it would finally let the people around him matter.

Bond movies have touched on this—Skyfall explored M’s past, Casino Royale made Vesper’s death hit hard—but the format doesn’t let these consequences linger. Quantum of Solace rushed through Bond’s grief. No Time to Die killed off Felix Leiter, but his loss barely registered before the next action sequence.

Imagine fully developed characters dying on missions gaining the intel Bond ultimately uses in his own. Imagine a season where every mission builds toward an intelligence war that forces MI6 into uneasy alliances, pitting double agents against each other while the line between ally and enemy blurs. Imagine multi-episode arcs focused entirely on the aftermath of a botched mission, where Bond isn’t just hunting down a villain—he’s dealing with the explored fallout of his own mistakes.

These are stakes that can’t be built in a single film. A Bond series would change that.

Is a Prestige Bond Series a High Stakes Mission?

There are risks, of course. Mishandle a Bond series, and the brand weakens. Casting presents another challenge—should the same actor play Bond in both mediums? (Craig’s comments on the rigor and time of film production suggest that’s unlikely.) Would audiences embrace a long-form Bond or dismiss it as a demotion or redundant?

But The Penguin proved something vital. It didn’t just tell a great story; it expanded the Batman universe without diminishing the films. It showed how long-form storytelling can add depth rather than distraction. Bond deserves the same treatment.

And prestige TV has already rewritten the rules for espionage. The Agency, The Day of The Jackal, The Night Manager, Black Doves and Slow Horses prove that long-form storytelling isn’t just good for spy thrillers—it’s now the best way to tell them.

And the best part?

The films don’t have to stop.

Let the series handle the depth.

Let the films stay explosive.

That’s how Bond stays ahead of the spy game—by playing the long one.▪

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