Product: The Sandbaggers Collection Set 1
Rating: 5.0
Brilliant!
This 70s Brit series' take on the peril of empire remains a lodestar of the genre. Filmed with the still unrivaled toxic television color film of the period (almost no color at all, creating a realist grit that modern filmmakers can only dream about) and featuring a young Roy Marsden as Neil Burnside, head of Special Section, chief of his three (sometimes two) beloved Sandbaggers - this is way more than a tv series. Its verismo cool induces the keen euphoria of addiction. The series relies on fine writing, with each succeeding episode upping the ante, and Marsden's diamond intensity. The sets are beyond spare, and the prop telephones ring at volumes to blast your brains. The red phone on Burnside's desk becomes a familiar extra character in every episode. Marsden is mesmerizing. His foibles are dark, his life is a secret. He falls in love with Sandbagger Laura Dickens, and by episode's end sees her shot dead on an East Berlin bridge in a prisoner swap - by a CIA agent, from a building inside East Berlin. It's one of the best episodes in a consummately taut series that exudes grit and conscience. Alan MacNaughton ("To Serve Them All My Days") as Wellingham gives Marsden a run for his money whenever he's on screen. Brilliant stuff. I own the dvd set, and suggest you're impoverished if you don't. If you're a fan of 70s British spy drama you already know about Sandbaggers. If not, check in. You won't leave.