Close to the Enemy

I expect this will annoy some people and if so all well and good. Reading the negative reviews of Poliakoff's recent BBC drama I was apt to think that the reviewers were likely to be from a particular demographic: white, middle aged and ( this is a long shot) Brexit voters. It seems to me that they have completely misunderstood the whole point of this brilliant drama. It is indeed stylistically quirky, stilted in its language and takes a long time to get to its real points. However, it is a wonderful journey and well worth the seven hours it takes to get there. Far from being poorly acted, as several people state, it is quite brilliantly acted and huge talents like Lindsay Duncan and Alfred Molina are far from wasted. Moreover there are new talents being revealed here. I think that the reason several reviewers hate it so much is that it is a cultured and deliberately nuanced piece of drama that demands the audience pay attention and read between the lines. For it is not really about the 1940s at all! It is about now. It is about the racism and bigotry of the time in which we live. The intolerance of difference and tendency to avoid thinking in our society. The moral dilemmas of the central characters are not simply those of the 1940s where murderers got away with things because the British, Americans and Russians wanted to use their knowledge to create weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons are not only still with us but pose a threat that may be even greater than in the Cold War era. It is about power in age age when bigotry, racism and fear are ever present. The efforts of some to create a Europe and international community of cooperation are placed in jeopardy by the ignorance of those who don't want to think, don't wish to explore the past for what it can teach us and who simply want the crap of the vast majority of media output we are presented with on TV, film and the Internet. If you can't see that you have totally misunderstood the point of Poliakoff's work.

Absolutely love Close to the Enemy. We need more series on TV which make us think as we wait for the dark side of certain characters to be exposed with the nuances of a brief glance saying so much. I lived through this time in history and the story is believable. All the actors are superbly cast. I have begun to like Dieter and Lotte and am hoping their ending will be a happy one but I will have to wait and see. The relationship between Callum and Rachel is sometimes difficult to watch with my young family members but c'est la vie. We have yet to know the true horrors of Callum and his brother Victor's experiences in the War, only viewing a flash back of Callum and being told Victor was at Monte Cassino. Well done to all involved and thank you for making Thursday night a moment I can look forward to and enjoy. Barbara

This may not have been the best drama ever produced, an understatement. But it does seem to have tried to as believably as possible show just how the British authorities excused themselves from pursuing the worst criminals this world has yet seen, in a stupid vainglorious attempt to claw back their faded imperial grandeur. We may sneer at the idea that this happened. It did. With the flesh still rotting on the murdered peoples corpses those in power in Britain waved away the smell and got on with business like nothing had happened.

So if this made some true blue Brits uncomfortable and compelled them to write angry hateful reviews, then it did its purpose as a piece of drama very well. So anyone who felt it necessary to jump online to write a tirade has been made to feel outrage by what they "claimed" to be poor work or "worthless" or "a waste of money". If it was why did it move you so? Why not just change the channel or go watch YouTube?

I don't understand all the bad reviews, but then they usually say they gave up watching early on. I went all the way through it and wish there would be another season or two. I don't know what they think is 'well written' but I enjoyed most of the plot and scenes. Only the sexy scenes were not to my liking and felt as if they were put in to make things more 'exciting'. The last episode was the best way to end things. I didn't feel cheated or let down. I really liked the scenes in the hotel. It was interesting to see the challenges after the war that we never really see made into a series or a movie. I think the story message to me was that people in a difficult situation don't always do the right thing. They aren't always brave and sometimes they are just plain overwhelmed. And that is whether you are on the winning side or the losing side.

The acting of Alfred Molina is worth the time. Yes, I agree with some that the plot has some unlikely twists and down ends, but overall I enjoyed the series. Lindsey Duncan and Angela Bassett are noteworthy. Perhaps from a British viewpoint the series didn't dig deep enough, but frankly I found the characters with their obvious guilt and pain over the war very human. I see so many murder mystery series that this was refreshing looking at this time period. So I don't know if they will ever do another season, but I wish they would.