Folge #2.1

Mid-1943. The Allies have driven the Axis out of North Africa and are now planning their next move - the invasion of Axis-held Europe. With the desert war over it appears that the SAS no longer has a use, prompting the top brass to consider disbanding the unit. The unit's predicament is not helped by their commander, Paddy Mayne's, unruly behaviour. Help comes from an unexpected source.

Season 1 of SAS Rogue Heroes was fantastic: a wonderful mix of history and action, aided by a rock soundtrack and modern dialogue. Despite all the modern day aspects, other anachronisms and general style-for-effect it worked brilliantly, the plot was quite tight and showed well the helter-skelter world of battle and the formation of the SAS.

Season 2 tries to start in the same vein but Episode 1 overdoes the unruliness and indiscipline, trying to be edgy and extreme just for the sake of it, resulting in a plot that is implausible and clumsy - far from tight. It is watchable but disappointing after what came before.

Here's hoping that in subsequent episodes the tone and quality settle down to what we had in S1, rather than the current extremeness for the sake of extremeness.

After binge watching the latest series, what I've found is you have to realise it's a TV programme with a certain amount of artistic licence.

At the start it even says" this is NOT a history lesson". If that's what you want then watch the Discovery channel.

Where the SAS rogues, yes, Hero's, most definitely, but having read about their exploits during WW2 then a certain amount of, let's just say, difference from the conventional soldier was needed to complete their objectives. For those reading this for spoilers, there is non, watch it for yourself, but keep an open mind. A very open mind indeed.

This episode didn't need to go the way it did in order to reawaken the viewers to a second season. Having Paddy throw a tantrum in a restaurant before whipping a crew of MPs may have been an attempt at thanking the loyal fans for returning to view the 2nd season, but it didn't set a tone that made a lot of sense, IMO.

The return of Eve from the desert plane crash was slightly spoiled by having her show up in a mannish looking suit of the kind that didn't appear on women until the 1980s. Still, Dudley's state of sobriety was a relief of sorts.

Now, I've found that this will be doled out at an episode per week. I'll wait until it's all there before I watch any more, if indeed I bother.

Season 1 really should have been the hint that this series is going to be dramatisation and should have made it clear to anyone that watched it first the tone it'd be taking. Is it maybe exaggerating the behaviour of Paddy Mayne and some of the other characters? Yes, probably quite a bit but it's 6 episodes to fit a lot in hense the feeling of things escalating fast. Do they exaggerate everything? Probably not, in fact probably toned down from the actual events.

Credit where it's due though, they don't flinch in depicting some of the more 'uncomfortable' facts of war that even the good guys carried out out of necessity for the mission and the greater good. Did these events happen exactly as depicted to the people it shows? Honestly I don't know but it is a reality that incidents like it did occur. They don't tend to lead with those bits in the history books though.

Its based on events.. not a history lesson.. so I guess that means you can do whatever you want now. Is this series gonna end with these SAS guys with comical, perfectly annunciated irish/scottish accents, storming Hitler's castle where hes hiding out.. bursting in while hes got two Jewish women chained up screaming.. and Paddy saying in perfectly clear english, "Am i Interuppting mate? Because i just traveled da seven seas, climbed da biggest mountains, killed many men.. just ta kill youuuugh".. and they shoot Hitler in his crotch 50x and the credits roll after we see the woman and Stirling smiling.. in love in Paris.

Everything going forward is going to be predictable.. every scene where the SAS guys "meet new ppl/soldiers" they will find any corny little way to take offense to.. well ANYTHING (bc they are so sensitive to the opinions of others) and make a huge scene whos sole purpose is to get more attention for them and more glory they think they deserve. I am pretty sure the SAS and NAVY Seals are the exact opposite of that and thats why we love them. They may have been crass, rude, "madmen" but they weren't glory hunting douc*ebags humble bragging every chance they could get. They didnt storm a beach all alone as "stupid american gliders" crashed leaving hundreds to die as 30 SuperSoldiers of the SAS slowly and heartlessly float by. Who the hell wrote this stuff? Oh right its not a history lesson, silly me for thinking deeper than my toenail when watching this nonsense.

How do we meet the new intakes and basically meet the SAS again in season 2? They got them all under a tent acting like total unlikeable knobheads who are spending almost a year of the war sitting around "training" in egypt but still walk around the place and treat people like they're on another level. Their liason to HQ comes just to explain the mission and the plan... and this is where "character development" happens. The guys are basically an orgy of fart noises, "Oi YA WANNA GO MATE?!", and sassy banter dissecting the appearance and every word the liason is saying. He cant even say a sentence until even Paddy cuts him off to get his litle moment of "tough guyness" as if we didnt get it now. I think MOST watchers of the show were still thinking how messed up it was Paddy assaulted 8 military police officers, his own countrymen.. just to get some more attention like a drama queen. Its 2025.. most shows/movies that show scenes like this do it to make the main character look bad and its done on purpose so we dont like them. In this show we slowly realize it was done simply bc its cool and makes him look hard as nails.. and special. Him showing no mercy to fellow soldiers was supposed to be him making tough decisions as a leader but instead it made the viewers further dislike him.

We all know what the rest of the series will look like. Theres gonna be scenes where SAS walks up to a situation during a battle.. allied soldiers are cowering in fear as bullets fly by.. then we see the boots of the SAS soldiers standing tall and the camera pans up.. its Paddy and the scottish/irish guys! Looking majestic, some chest hair popping out of a relaxed, unbuttoned shirt. Wearing their super special tan berets. And the american soldier slowly looks up at them like gods and says "are.. are you REAL?!" And Paddy says something like, "we will take it from here boys.. keep ur heads down. Dangerous out there. ;) "