This is real class. Everything about this is superb - source material, adaptation, acting, even the music. The acting is especially wonderful: totally convincing with not a dud note anywhere. As pointed out by many others, Alec Guinness IS George Smiley. If you see the TV series before reading the book, then it's impossible to think of the Smiley character in any other way than as played by Guinness.
This is how I imagine the espionage world to be - painstaking research, surveillance and investigation, interspersed with occasional moments of high excitement. James Bond it ain't. Boring? Not a bit of it, unless all you want is minimal plot and maximum 'action'.
In this age of dumbed down TV, I don't think we'll ever see the like again on the BBC. So savour it.
This is how I imagine the espionage world to be - painstaking research, surveillance and investigation, interspersed with occasional moments of high excitement. James Bond it ain't. Boring? Not a bit of it, unless all you want is minimal plot and maximum 'action'.
In this age of dumbed down TV, I don't think we'll ever see the like again on the BBC. So savour it.