The Sandbaggers

[james_davis_nicoll]

I borrowed a friend's DVD collection of this 1980s (?) British espionage show. So far I have seen one episode, one that seemed to be (probably accidentally) the Anti-Bond: the explicit moral is that effective espionage is not a matter of daring and glamourous agents risking their lives out in the field but of careful planning by a bunch of well-informed bureaucrats in the home country beforehand.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Does that make good television?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Not sure. It's very grey and there seems to be a deliberate choice to avoid anything exciting. These are people doing their jobs and the job just happens to be espionage.

Worth a look anyway.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

have you seen mi-5/spooks? the moral seems to be that espionage is only vaguely effective, and while the agents are daring and glamourous they get chewed up and spit out.

Yes.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I love SPOOKS but I don't think plausibility ever trumps drama. For example, from an old episode, when Tom screws over Nasty American Christian Terrorist Lady, part of the twist of the knife is that she's being sent to a death penalty state so that she will be executed before her baby comes to term. Well, it takes forever to get someone executed in the US and in a case like hers where she will have lots of supporters, probably within the current administration, there is _no_ chance that she will be tried, convicted and all the appeals run out before the kid is born. In fact, the odds aren't too bad that the kid will have graduated from grade school by the time she is given her lethal injection.

There are definite resonances with the way people are used in THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, except I don't think Harry has ever given up one his own quite the way wossname did in SPY.

Re: Yes.

[wdstarr.livejournal.com]

I love SPOOKS but I don't think plausibility ever trumps drama. For example, from an old episode, when Tom screws over Nasty American Christian Terrorist Lady, part of the twist of the knife is that she's being sent to a death penalty state so that she will be executed before her baby comes to term. Well, it takes forever to get someone executed in the US and

I Could Be Wrong, but my very faded memory of that episode is that it was her equally fanatic *husband* who was due for execution; the U.S. wanted to have wifey in its custody prior to that happy day. Maybe. At least that's how I think I remember it.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I really love THE SANDBAGGERS. It's not unlike the serious version of YES, MINISTER, in that it's very much about the bureaucratic wrangling that both eases and impedes the necessary work of government. Doesn't sound like an exciting topic, I know, but one does get very involved in the battles of the anti-hero of the series. Or at least, I did.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Speaking of YES MINISTER, the supporting cast overlaps. This has unintentally comic results, when the lead character has a Very Serious Conversation with a colleague who is being played by a fellow last seen playing an hopelessly stupid and corrupt old duffer on YES PRIME MINISTER (the old guy who ends up running the central bank, I think).

Cast Cross-over

[(Anonymous)]

Having 'Percy' from Blackadder in SPOOKS is a real hoot too. I must get around to watching my gf's SANDBAGGERS DVDs. BTW, SPOOKS season2 is on special at amazon UK, I just got a 'hint' about it from her.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002DXN6I/letscook/026-4441941-0938862

Cheers
Errol

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's a very good show, and more realistic than one might suppose. The work lacks glamour, but the details are engrossing.

TK

Never seen it but...

[(Anonymous)]

The QUEEN & COUNTRY comic series by Greg Rucka at Oni is explicity influenced by it. It's rather good, operatives out in the field sections interesting, office politics stuff even more so. The Hand of The Author is felt in one major storyline, but I'm hoping that there's an unrevealed plot reason for that.

Stephen Shevlin

[carbonel]

Is the third series out on DVD yet? I have DVDs of the first two series, but I didn't think the third was available.

I bought them because they're the flip side of The Professionals, a British "special agent" show to which I have devoted way too much of my life.

I find Sandbaggers compelling at times, but I'm convinced that whatisname (the main character) is a loser incompetent who only got his job because of his ex-wife's father.