Being a True Brit I know that the British Broadcasting Corporation makes the best television in the world, proof of what a steady diet of tea and crumpets will do. An e-mail I received this week reminded me that they sometimes do more than that. For two of their recent programmes you were able to put yourself into the action with online adventures tied into the latest series of each.

The first, started late last year, was the dark spy thriller programme Spooks. The programme revolved around the activities of a branch of MI5 called section D, whose job is to deal with the messier side of national security. The stories often trod murky waters of moral ambiguity and were not afraid of showing how dangerous a world spies inhabit. Someone introduced as a major character was brutally murdered in the second episode of series one and the five successive series have seen a number of personnel depart, usually in terrible or fatal circumstances.

The accompanying game was written to run through series six and involved you being recruited by MI5, having attracted their attention with your hacking skills. Each week you were assigned two new missions. These took the form of some highly inventive puzzle games. Whilst a handful just involved clicking buttons until you got the right answer, many of these were challenges of brain, nerve and reactions, operating against the clock. The missions were related to the series plot and provided further backstory as well as teasers of what was to come. Mission briefings were presented to you as video phone contacts from actual series characters as well as a new character specially created for the online adventure, the mysterious Mayfield. The writing was well up to the standard of the programme itself with a truly satisfying end to the online-only subplot.

The second recently finished programme to get the online treatment was the Doctor Who spinoff series Torchwood. Only in its second series, Torchwood tells the tale of an organisation whose job it is to defend the earth from alien incursion and research alien technology. Their activities are centred around Cardiff, site of a temporal rift, and explore many themes as dark as Spooks, though with a sci-fi twist.

The Torchwood online game took a slightly different approach. There was only one mission a week but they centred a lot more on investigation, usually involving searching for clues across a range of websites created specially for the game. The most detailed of these was the weekly video of the conspiracy programme "Dark Talk", which investigated the strange in general and Torchwood in particular. The fictional host, Abigail Crowe, even had her own MySpace page. What at first seemed like a simple missing person case soon took a more sinister turn. Your role was as a freelance operative and an especially nice touch was the weekly e-mails you received requesting your assistance with a specific problem. Once again, characters from the programme briefed you and provided assistance but the story was entirely separate from the series with only passing references to the activities of the week. The e-mail I received this week was a congratulatory message for my success with a link to a commendation certificate for a job well done. I’d like to assure you that I haven’t printed it off and stuck it on my wall, that would be silly. I put it in my briefcase so it will be readily available to show people.

Both of these games helped make watching the programmes more enjoyable by giving me more investment in them. Even better, whilst not having the complexity of a full stand-alone release, the games were both pretty enjoyable to play. If you want to have a look for yourselves, both sites are still up and running. The experience won’t be the same as playing while watching the programme but you should be able to get an idea. I know with these two fine examples in mind, I’m looking forward to more adventures in television.