Shaun Evans thriller Betrayal feels like it was made in a different era – and not in a good way

We've seen spy thrillers on TV so many times before that any new addition to the genre needs to set out its stall quickly - especially given we've just had the welcome return of the BBC's excellent The Night Manager.

ITV's new series Betrayal does that. It makes clear from the off that it's a different kind of series, bringing the spycraft right down to earth, and making clear that as well as being about protagonist John's professional life, it is also heavily hinged on his personal issues in his crumbling marriage.

These are both potentially interesting concepts. However, just as quickly as the potential for innovation emerges, so too does a problem, and that is in the execution.

That's because for as much as it's purporting to be a fresh take on a beloved yet highly exposed genre, so many aspects of this series feel incredibly dated - with the worst offender being its portrayal of John's marital woes.

Very early into the first episode, we see Shaun Evans's John attending marriage counselling with his wife Claire, played by Romola Garai. After 10 years of marriage, the couple and parents to two children, are failing to see eye to eye, primarily because of John's job at MI5.

Claire wants John to be at home more, allowing her to advance in her career, rather than having to prioritise childcare all the time. She's also sick of the secrecy, and when John finds himself under an internal investigation at work, she hopes that this will be the push he needs to leave the service and do something else.

Although John is feeling out of place in the organisation, and recognises that it has moved on without him in ways he can't, he is a career man, and has no intention of leaving, no matter what grumblings he might make about it. Frankly, he wishes Claire would stop nagging him.

Meanwhile, he worries that Claire is getting too close to her boss, Martin. Though, John is perhaps projecting, since we're quickly informed that he previously had an affair with a colleague, one which has left Claire distrustful of him ever since.

Now, first things first, none of this is preposterous or outdated in its content. However, the element that does feel strangely regressive is the use of the nagging wife trope - particularly when we're told so little about Claire outside of her role as a mother and wife.

Sure, she has a job and is looking for a promotion, but that feels like more of an imposition for John rather than a character trait we are meant to sustain actual interest in.

At times it's almost like the team behind the programme are willing us on to side with John and to find Claire utterly unbearable. One particular set of sequences, involving John's wish to invite his mother for Christmas, is almost absurdly one-sided in its presentation, with Claire coming across as needlessly cruel and lacking in understanding.

About 15 years ago, the talk of the internet was the unwarranted hatred doled out to Anna Gunn's Breaking Bad character, Skyler. Some particular pockets of fans couldn't stand her for 'nagging' her husband, Bryan Cranston's Walter White, and trying to get in the way of his business.

In that instance, Walt's 'business' was the illegal production and distribution of meth. Plenty of fans, including myself, would argue that Skyler's reaction was wholly reasonable given the circumstances, and the death and destruction Walt brought to their door.

In the case of Betrayal, that argument's a little harder to make. Obviously, a lack of balance in a marriage and complaints about sharing the burden of childcare are perfectly reasonable. But here, I have no doubt that we're meant to root for John, in a really rather uncomplicated way.

Even if he's a bit rough around the edges, he's investigating a potential terror threat on British soil. If that means Claire can't get her promotion, or she doesn't get to know exactly what his day-to-day entails, then I think most people would say that's a fair trade-off to keep the public safe.

The problem is, if we don't know Claire, if we aren't allowed to see her day-to-day or understand what she's going through - we don't even witness her experiencing any particular parenting nightmares - then it's hard for us to care about her side of the argument, even if we do recognise the level of distrust that his cheating has instilled within her.

This whole storyline just feels oddly out of place in 2026, not merely because so many conversations have now been had about centring women's stories in TV, but also because there's so much emphasis on nuance in TV storytelling now.

Of course, it might be easier to overlook if, firstly, it wasn't such a prominent distraction from the rest of the series, and secondly, if it wasn't quite so dull and trite. The storyline says absolutely nothing that hasn't already been said about the blend of marriage and spycraft, or even the potential for relationships to dissolve over time in any scenario.

There's also a wider issue at play here, which is that the 'at work' storyline John is involved in isn't particularly thrilling either. Strangely, a large amount of Betrayal's runtime is taken up with John griping on about modern day sensitivities and office politics, which, while perhaps slightly more recent, still feels like another tired trope, one which has been beaten to death on screen over the past five to 10 years.

The irony is that the actual bits of spycraft and investigation that John does get to do are incredibly timely, given their specific focus on the regime in Iran. Unfortunately, even these are largely mishandled, as the obsessive focus on keeping everything grounded means that John himself rarely gets to do anything particularly exciting. If the characters didn't keep talking about MI5, you wouldn't know it wasn't just another crime show.

Perhaps the biggest shame of all is that the series wastes the talents of its actors, particularly Shaun Evans who puts in a really rather astounding performance. Raw, emotional, funny, it hits all the beats, and you can tell how much dedication he has brought to this project.

Romola Garai is also far better than the material she's been given, while Zahra Ahmadi is perhaps the one person who is given her due, with her character Mehreen's storyline being by far the most engaging element of the series. If a second season of Betrayal focused more on John and Mehreen, moved away from his home life, and amped up the action, we could be in for a winner.

Sadly, for now this is what we've got. A strange mish-mash of a show, with one foot in the past as a dated examination of marriage, and the other in the present, struggling desperately to cling to realism to the extent that it sometimes forgets spy stories are meant to be fun.

Betrayal will premiere at 9pm on Sunday 8th February on ITV1 and ITVX in 2026.

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