Simeon Goulden

I really loved it. I know, a Sky One comedy! (It's fine, we're all telly snobs here.) Darren Boyd has been around for years - you'll know his face, if not the name, from Green Wing and Whites - but I have to say I've never taken much notice of him before. But I'm happy to say that he's genuinely brilliant here as an under-achieving divorcee dad Tim who stumbls into a job with MI5. His pious, genius son is a great character, and Horrible Histories' Matthew Baynton is really funny and very well cast as Tim's weird best friend.

It has to be said that elements of this felt familiar - I suspect writer/creator Simeon Goulden is a big Spaced fan, and the scene in which Tim disrupts the entrance exam is pure Men In Black. But none of that lessened my enjoyment - Goulden is borrowing from the best there, after all - and I was chuckling throughout. Give it a go.

Anna Lowman, Dork Adore, 18th October 2011

Tim really is a loser. As we meet him he's suffering yet another dressing-down from his nastily precocious nine-year-old son (Jude Wright), his withering ex and her annoying new bloke. He's stuck in a terrible retail job. He's lazy, nervous and accident-prone.

Tim's the character Darren Boyd was born to play, in other words, and consequently everything Boyd says and does is funny in this new comedy from relatively unknown writer Simeon Goulden.

Today, Tim's life changes as he accidentally gets a job working as an MI5 agent with licence to kill. The bumbler-out-of-water gag is a bit of an easy comedy win that could feasibly wear thin over a series - but based on the cutting comebacks and rat-a-tat timing here, it probably won't. As Tim's Secret Service colleagues, Robert Lindsay and Rebekah Staton are excellent foils for Boyd.

Jack Seale, Radio Times, 14th October 2011

Simeon Goulden - Writer of Spy - introduces the show

Sky have been incredibly supportive of me and this project. I didn't want to write a typical pre-watershed family comedy, and Sky have been brave in letting us push the envelope a bit.

Simeon Goulden, Sky, 14th October 2011