impressed enough by Dodds' performance that they wished to see her return in the second series. Kevin McNally appears as Robert Osbourne, the antagonist of the second episode. The producers felt the actor was suitable for the role, as was the case with Debra Stephenson, who played his wife Claire. In the fourth and fifth episodes, Hugh Laurie appears as Jools Siviter, a department head of MI6, an organisation depicted as "old school" compared with MI5. Laurie based his performance on Barry Foster's portrayal of the head of MI6 in Sweeney!. Meanwhile, also in episode four, Anthony Head, best known for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time, played Peter Salter. Despite his status as a former Buffy regular, Head still had to earn the role from his audition. In episode five, Tim Pigott-Smith plays Hampton Wilder, a character who was based on Richard Nixon and Jeffrey Archer. In the same episode, Naoko Mori appeared as a lover of Danny's; Mori previously appeared in Psychos, another series produced by Kudos. In the finale, Irish actor Lorcan Cranitch plays Irish splinter group terrorist Patrick McCann. Cranitch had previously appeared in several other dramas as Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operators. Production Crew The first series of Spooks was produced by Kudos Film and Television for the BBC. David Wolstencroft was credited as the series creator, Simon Crawford Collins as the producer, and Jane Featherstone as the series producer. The executive producers of the first series were Kudos director Stephen Garrett and Head of Independent Drama Commissioning for the BBC, Gareth Neame. The series includes three screenwriters, and three directors. Wolstencroft wrote the first two episodes and finale of series one. Simon Mirren wrote the third episode. Howard Brenton wrote the last three episodes, co-writing the finale with Wolstencroft. The producers hired Brenton for his "radical" and "provocative" style. By the time he was hired it had been sixteen years since he last wrote for television. The producers from Kudos spent up to three months meeting several potential directors to work on the show, but none shared their views about the show's style until Bharat Nalluri. The style the director used was inspired by Bollywood films, as well as American television. According to Wolstencroft, Nalluri "directs as I see." Three directors were chosen, each working on two episodes; Nalluri directed the first two episodes, Rob Bailey directed the next