Preview: Tensions are high in BBC America’s The Game

It’s a sad commentary on the state of the world when the Cold War is viewed nostalgically, as it is in BBC America’s The Game. The six-episode series, premiering on BBC America Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 10pmET, stars Tom Hughes (Dancing on the Edge) as MI5 agent BBC America's The Game is a new spy thrillerJoe Lambe, a young man haunted by his lover’s murder and his own betrayal against his country. His boss, whose name is Daddy (Brian Cox, The Bourne Supremacy), runs a tight department, but double-crossers lurk among his agents.

Creator Toby Whithouse (Being Human) captures the tensions and mood of 1972, and to ensure accuracy, he interviewed actual spies.

“Perhaps, not surprisingly, they tend to be quite circumspect about their methods,” Whithouse says. “Someone from MI6 thanked me for creating an imaginary world. It is almost like the supernatural — the only ones who know it are in it.”

Many questions are raised early. A KGB officer defects and reveals that a brewing Soviet plot could have disastrous results in England. Why would he reveal this? What’s in it for him? Who is Lambe? Nothing is readily deduced in the first two episodes. The older spies need to trust that Daddy knows what he’s doing as he puts his hotshot agent Lambe on the case.

BBC America's The Game“He is a bit of an enigma,” Hughes says of his character. “The person you meet in 1972 is completely different from a year before. He’s had things happen in his personal life.

“He’s a man that possesses hidden and mysterious talents that he spent his life lying about — what he is truly thinking and feeling,” he says.

Hughes, born in 1986, has no experience with those tense times, but Cox, who plays his boss, remembers them well. “They were heady times,” Cox says. “There were various rumors about people trying to requisition the Queen Mary. I think people, especially characters like Daddy, came from the war. They were living their fantasies.”

Cox says he draws from his former father-in-law’s experiences in the Special Air Service during World War II to inform his character. Daddy is not one to be crossed. “Taking someone down is second nature to me now,” Cox says, deadpan. “I do have source material.”

Daddy could order a hit on someone and never raise an eyebrow. And some characters in The Game are so despicable that their own mothers might not mourn their deaths. All of it feels very real, and because no answers are immediately apparent, viewers will be lured in to see what this Soviet plot is and who is involved.

“There are some brilliant cliffhangers, some of the best I have witnessed in a long time,” Cox says. “And it is very bold.”

The Game airs on BBC America Wednesdays at 10pm