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

[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.