M.I. High

M.I. High is a British action television series produced by Kudos for CBBC and created by Olivia McRae. The series focuses on a team of undercover teenage spies working for a fictional version of the secret intelligence agency MI9 who have to balance their school life with their jobs as secret agents. The line-up of spies has altered between the show's seven series.
The series premiered on 8 January 2007 and originally ended on 21 March 2011 after five series, before being revived for a further two series that were broadcast between 7 January 2013 and 31 March 2014. The show was cancelled in 2015, as the main filming locations of the series no longer existed.
Premise.
The series follows the adventures of four secondary school pupils who work as undercover spies. The spies are led by MI9 agent Frank London (Jonny Freeman) whose cover job is a school caretaker. All other spies' covers have been blown, and the only spies left undercover are those still being trained, including those still enrolled in school. To reach their base 230 feet below the school, they slide a light switch across which reveals a fingerprint scanner lock. They enter the caretaker's store room and pull a broom which turns the floor into a high-speed lift which changes the spies' clothing and hairstyles (It was said by Kerri in Season 7, Episode 2 – Frankenstein "I know it's high tech and everything, but seriously, how can the lift do my hair better than I can?"). The identity of the overarching villains The Grand Master (Series 1–5) and The Mastermind (Series 6–7) remains a mystery within the show. The team must constantly save the world from domination by a variety of villains, whilst hiding their spy identities from their teachers and peers, and completing their school work.
Production.
Writing.
Producer of the series Kerry Appleyard revealed that the concept for the show came from the creator and writer of the show Keith Brumpton who had the idea it would be fun to do a kids spy show and worked on the concept that kids find it very hard to keep secrets. MI5 and MI6 did not want the production team to use their names in the television programme but did allow them to use the name of the now defunct MI9 which back in World War II was in charge of covert operations in the UK and overseas and created various gadgets.
Producer Kerry Appleyard thought that it was appropriate because the show has a lot of fantastic gadgets.
Casting.
Series 1
When the auditions were held for the main characters of M.I. High, leaflets were sent out to schools and over a thousand kids were seen, from which director Toby Haynes had to choose the main characters. When auditions for the part of Daisy Miller took place, there were a hundred children that day to audition. Bel Powley was in the middle of the crowd looking around and she caught Haynes's eye when she was sitting down on the floor and he thought she had confidence, which was exactly what he was looking for.
Rachel Petladwala heard about the audition through the leaflet that was read out in her assembly. She and her friends thought they might as well have a go and when she got the part she was astonished. In the audition for Rose Gupta the actress noticed that "Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)" was spelt wrong in the script and informed Haynes, who immediately decided she was right for the role.
The main challenge, according to Haynes, was taking school children and turning them into actors, so they were given acting coaching before filming began.
Series 6
Oscar Jacques was confirmed to be playing Tom Tupper; the actor went to six auditions before he was told by the producer that he got the part. In June 2012, Paul Bamford was announced to be playing student Roly.
Series 7
It was confirmed that two new students would be introduced for the seventh series: Megan McGill was cast as Lady J, and Sandy Bain was cast as Preston.
Filming.
Filming for series four and five was confirmed to be located at Selhurst High School in Croydon. The cast of series four Rachel Petladwala, Charlene Osuagwu and Ben Kerfoot reprised their roles. Producer Emma Kingsman-Lloyd said: "Filming at this location was such a success last year that we knew we wanted to return to film series 5."
She also went on to say “The location of the school near to Croydon town centre has meant that we're ideally situated near to shops and banks and it also has a wide variety of locations – parks, streets and cafes ;– nearby so we never have to travel very far to find locations for the scenes we film off site.
“But perhaps best of all, Selhurst School only closed last year and has been well maintained since so it's brilliant."
Merchandise.
Books.
Books have been released including three novels, a survival handbook and a 2012 annual.
Cancelled novels.
There have been three novels planned but were later cancelled.
DVD release.
The first series of "M.I. High" was scheduled to be released on DVD in two five-episode installments. The first of which was released on 21 January 2008 and the second which would complete the first season was to follow on 31 March 2008 but was cancelled indefinitely with no reason given, and the rest of the show has not seen a DVD release yet. The first DVD includes a documentary about the series (which is made up of various short clips shown during the series on CBBC Extra).
iTunes releases.
MI High Series 1–3 has released digitally on iTunes Australia, Germany, and France, although across all three countries are only in standard definition, as opposed to the Netflix releases.
Netflix releases.
Netflix UK, AUS and NZ made the show available on the platform in high-definition, however it's since been removed.
iPlayer release.
The show was removed from iPlayer since its around its last broadcast, sometimes returning some series for short periods of time; however, in late 2020, all series of the programme became available again on BBC iPlayer in high-definition, with Series 2 Episode 7 The Cold War, Series 3 Episode 9 Family Tree and Series 6 Episode 8 The Germinator all being removed.
"M.I. High" games.
Whack The Mole!
Starting at the beginning of series two there was a new interactive web experience that could be found at the show's site. The game was created by Xenophile Media. After gaining access to the Flash-based game with a registration process, players could participate in weekly missions. The missions were tied in with events occurring on the show each week, but the game included video clips that summarised each episode which made it possible for people outside of the broadcast area to play the game as well.
The plot of the game centered around the fictional St. Hope's High School which was the basis of the television programme. There was a mole – self-entitled as 'The Mole' – amongst the students, and it was the job of the player to try to figure out who the rogue agent was. At the successful end of each mission, the list of suspects was narrowed down automatically through the process of elimination by using numerous clues that would be discovered about The Mole's identity (e.g. One clue was that The Mole wore a specific kind of voice-changer that would be placed over one's teeth, people with braces can't wear the voice-changer, therefore all suspects that have braces are eliminated).
The user interface included the Digital Operations Research Assistant (D.O.R.A), which guided players to manipulate various technological tools including a geographic locator and an audio analyzer. Players were given instructions about how to use each of the tools in order to successfully pass the missions.
When a player completed the game, they would discover that The Mole was Suspect Number 9: Panda Strobel and that her secret lair was located in the basement of the abandoned Battersea Power Station situated on the south bank of the River Thames.
When the second M.I. High game Catch The Grand Mistress was released, Whack The Mole! was still available for gameplay alongside Catch The Grand Mistress.
"As of January 2014, this game is no longer available for game play as it has been removed from the show's website."
Catch The Grand Mistress.
For series 4 and 5, Whack The Mole was relaunched to tie in with the new series. The objective was to locate and capture The Grand Mistress, the main antagonist of Series 4, Episode 2, "The Bunny Whisperer" and Series 5, Episode 2, "The B-Team." Each week, missions would be unlocked and information would be released in each mission to allow the player to eliminate possible bases, which would result in the correct base being located by the end of the game through the process of elimination. Various clues about The Grand Mistress' mistress plan were also scattered throughout the game. For the new game, the graphics were modified and updated, but retained the same high-tech look. D.O.R.A. and the SpyPod were also present in the new game.
When a player completed the game, they would discover that her secret lair was located in the Kingsway telephone exchange and that her mistress plan was to build a particle accelerator to create everlasting batteries for her hypnotic children's toy, the Whoozle Top, not to create a black hole underneath London as the agents first thought.
"As of January 2014, this game is no longer available for game play as it has been removed from the show's website."
Spy Skills.
For the 2013 relaunch of M.I.High, a new game was launched to tie in with the new series. The objective is to complete missions in different areas of intelligence. The games and their corresponding agents are as follows: