Summer of Rockets

I loved this, mostly for the fabulous production, perfect period setting, faultless acting and just dreamy comfortable escapism. Cleverly positioned humour dampened somewhat by weak satire.

However if you focus too much on the plot then it becomes a bit of a drag, bouncing back and forward and not necessarily going anywhere. It achieves its goal to instill a feeling of paranoia and mistrust, which worked well until the slightly daft ending. A deftly psychological thriller that ended up like an episode of Dad's army or last of the summer wine.

The Anthony story made no sense and wasn't entirely explained.

That aside, I still wouldn't have missed a sparkling performance by Keeley Hawes (Awards Long overdue) the epitome of the English Wife and a masterclass in received pronunciation. Toby Stevens brings an outstanding depth to the lead character Petrukhin as does his hilarious family ensemble.

Definitely recommended for the polished production; a cracking yarn mingled with the menace of espionage and subterfuge.

I give this series two stars for good production values in costume and scenery design. In every other aspect it is dreadful Toby Stevens constant overacting worked ok in the cartoonish Black Sails, but has failed in everything else. The plot of summer of rockers is unengaging, and frankly juvenile. Lastly the heavy and forced political correctness puts the final nail in this mess.

Some of the themes were intriguing, and the cast did their best. However, the plot was so ridiculous that it undermined any of the positive qualities of the drama. By the end, very disappointing and not worth the viewing time

It was a strange era, the 1950's. The Americans had McCarthyism, and we were affected by it, as the Series demonstrated reasonably well. Civil defence was growing, nobody trusted anybody else, and as Mr Petrukin found out, being Jewish put you right under the radar of MI5. This story captured the feel of the era quite well, and was assisted by some great acting and even thought I found this to be a very slow series, it was fascinating and I had to keep watching.

It was helped considerably by a first class cast, especially Toby Stephens as Samuel. He captured the essence of what it feels like to be the only sane character amongst a company of maniacs, and the rest of the cast including Keeley Hawes as his love interest, were all magnificent. I rather enjoyed Timothy Spall's portrayal of the titled gentleman know it all who tries to manipulate his peer group. Characterisation was what kept this series afloat; the plot meandered and the ending fell flat.

I am not too familiar with Poliakoff's stories but I look forward to watching some of his better works, this was intriguing but not satisfying.

Anything starring Keeley Hawes is going to be worth watching and this little drama is no exception. It's a fun bit of nonsense - very reminiscent of an episode of The Avengers from the late sixties - but far more elaborate. As usual with the BBC, the sub-plots hammer every politically correct stereotype going. The villains are all white, middle-aged, middle class males, the heroes are all either from a minority group or disabled. Of course, the police are racist and the young white men (except for the gay man and the vegetarian) are violent boors. Even the poor little debutantes get a drubbing. All boringly predictable - but it was fun seeing Lily Sacofsky giving one of the nasty young men a taste of her knee! To be fair though, I did enjoy this drama and would recommend it as a lightweight bit of entertainment.