John le Carre - his Cold War work is a great comparison to the world of API. Smiley's people sitting in rooms full of dusty shelves, poring over scraps of paper and making connections. And a similar viewing experience - half the time I watched those "Tinker, Tailor" miniseries in a state of "whaaa…?" just like w/…

and for the record
Spangler looks EXACTLY like your average mid- to upper-level military/intelligence community career dude. Great casting.

Not an intel analyst but…
I really love how this show sidesteps the problem that most movies/TV shows have showing people doing jobs like those at API - the fact that in reality 99.9% of it is done on a computer. So even Brian de Palma has to stop Mission:Impossible's pacing just so Tom Cruise can sit and do his…

Has anyone ever seriously considered a movie version of "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch"? That book ought to be a Schedule I controlled substance.

Book on Tape (though not actually on tape) nails it
because Paul Giamatti, Hollywood's go-to sad-sack, is the narrator. And he is absolutely brilliant. You feel the disconnection of the characters, you get how fried their thinking is - the scene w/ the 10 speed had me laughing out loud - but Giamatti, unlike Reeves…