The Sandbaggers S1 (Network DVD)

Posted on June 8, 2015 Updated on June 8, 2015

Having been watching The Game on BBC2 recently, I was prompted to hunt out my DVD of another spy series set in the 1970s that was a big favourite of mine when I was growing up.

It’s alarming to realise that The Sandbaggers was actually made only four years after The Game is set. You wouldn’t know it to look at it: unlike the über retro-stylised The Game, the older series wears its 1970s setting very lightly because it never occurred to the show that it belonged to a period, the programme makers instead merely opened the door and filming what was outside at the time. Other than obvious details such as fashion and cars together with a complete lack of computers and mobile phones there’s very little to date this show. Even a new cold war with the Russians is currently back in vogue in 2015, although a late visit to the Berlin Wall reminds us of an artefact of the age that will be completely bemusing to anyone born post-1989. Read the rest of this entry »