‘Fringe’ Meets Jason Bourne in Starz’s Forgotten 8-Episode Spy Thriller

Published Oct 11, 2026, 3:42 PM EDT

Anthony Crislip has always loved movies and television, and has been published in outlets such as SlashFilm and Ultimate Classic Rock. While working as a film programmer or judge at a film festival, he has striven to develop interest in underseen films. He is a particular fan of digging deep into forgotten corners of film history.

Even in a world where the average person knows The Witcher and can navigate the Targaryen family tree in House of the Dragon, sci-fi and fantasy television is still often set in worlds much like our own. The 2019 Starz miniseries The Rook is one such example, beginning in contemporary London as Myfanwy (rhymes with “Tiffany”) Thomas (Emma Greenwell) wakes up on the Millennium Bridge, surrounded by dead bodies — and with no memory of how she got there. Details slowly emerge about Myfanwy’s life and experience, but at the series’ core is an exciting spy show with a supernatural twist.

Based on Daniel O’Malley’s 2012 book of the same name, The Rook seems to riff on standard-issue British spy dramas rather than the absurd and darkly comic world of the source material. In particular, the Checquy Group of the book was a centuries-old society, while the show leans more into their MI5 aspects. The series ultimately opts for a muted, procedural take on the story, with the characters’ powers rarely rising to the truly fantastical level of the source material. Still, removed from the book, the initial setup of Myfanwy’s mysterious, bloody introduction leads to endless plot material, giving viewers a striking hook as she attempts to follow the race-against-time instructions that are her only clue to the truth.

'The Rook's Checquy Group Is Just Another Secret Government Division

The Checquy Group of the books might be more like an ancient masonic order than the show, but even the series' more bureaucratic take on them has a history with unique individuals which becomes the story's driving engine, with Myfanwy caught in the middle. Her powers involve electrical transmission at close distances, and we learn that her association with the Checquy Group began from a young age — not unlike the great Fox sci-fi procedural Fringe, superpowered children or EVAs (Extreme Variant Abilities) were taken in and groomed by the organization to serve as adult weapons, or "Rooks". The “King” of the Checquy is Linda (Joely Richardson of The Sandman fame), but more exciting is the Gestalt, a group of four fraternal twins who operate as one autonomous entity, feeling all of the same things and holding onto the same information.

Because of Myfanwy’s amnesia, she gets to serve as both a viewer surrogate and a cool secret agent like Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, although the tone draws much more from the Jason Bourne films. She introduces the world of the Checquy to herself through a pre-amnesia video, and finds herself continually at odds with them, as well as American EVA Monica Reed (Olivia Munn), whose investigation of the bridge incident leads her down a dark path as well. Monica is an invention for the show, and her parallel journey to Myfanwy is compelling, especially as she takes on the role of investigating the Vultures, a group that is abducting and selling EVAs to the highest bidder.

'The Rook' Has Pretty Dull Powers, but a Good Mystery

As The Rook goes on, questions linger about the dead bodies on the bridge, and who was responsible, but the show is perhaps too intent on withholding the information for the maximum impact to come in. Myfanwy's amnesia itself was triggered by the EVA Nazim (Michael Karim), but that only raises further mysteries, and the show’s long-form investigation never quite rises to the level of gold standards like True Detective. The limited, cheap use of superpowers accounts for the sole truly fantastical aspects of the show, with it feeling more like the weakest elements of NBC’s Heroes filtered through a spy lens. Even potentially interesting abilities like those of chemical-wielding Grantchester (Adrian Lester) are mostly portrayed by the victim coughing.

The Rook might be a disappointment for those expecting a version closer to the books' imaginative and funny world, but it still meets some of the necessary prerequisites for a gray London spy show, with grim dialogue and creepy plot points (particularly as the nitty-gritty of the Vultures’ “EVA auction” begins to be explored). If Stephenie Meyer of Twilight fame hadn’t dropped out of the show due to creative differences, per Deadline, it’s possible the show would have been a bigger success, maybe getting the chance to adapt (or similarly fail to adapt) the other books in the series. But removed from the books, The Rook is still a solid sci-fi spy thriller, with a great and vulnerable performance from Emma Greenwell.

The Rook