The Sandbaggers

"The Sandbaggers" is the best spy drama ever made for TV, and is certainly the most realistic. Focusing on a group of special agents of the British SIS, it shows spies as they probably really are: overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated and expendable.

The acting in the series is top notch by all of the cast, particularly Roy Marsden as the workaholic Burnside and Ray Lonnen as the amiable Caine. There's also particularly good work by Alan MacNaughton as the wily Wellingham. The plots rely less on action and more on intrigue, with battles won and lost in "drab dusty corridors in Whitehall", as Burnside puts it. There isn't any real gunplay until the sixth episode, in fact.

The first season of the series, with all episodes written by series creator Ian MacIntosh, is the best. It follows a rough story arc involving the introduction of troubled agent Laura Dickens (well-played by Diane Keen). It leads up to the powerful season finale "Special Relationship", which is a stunner.

The second season isn't as good. Other writers besides MacIntosh are involved and there are some ill-advised plot developments. Also, there are less-than-successful changes in some characterizations. But, still, it remains a superior and thoughtful drama.

I highly recommend this series. It's well-worth tracking down on video or on PBS. Just remember what Burnside says in the first episode: "If you want James Bond, go to a library."

I can't remember how I managed to stumble across this series a good many years ago now, but somehow - and I still haven't been able to work out just how - it managed to hook me almost instantly. There is so much subterfuge, nasty, backroom dealings and internal politics going on and plain intrigue that it hardly matters that there's almost no real action in this series. Virtually everything goes on in the offices of the Sandbagger unit and there's not even very much outdoor camera work, so I suspect this series was made on an incredibly cheap budget, but the scripts are good, the plots are believable, the acting is excellent when you consider that these guys are spies who are not meant to betray too much emotion, and the tension is constant. Good British psychological drama.

Finally on DVD in Canada. Saw this on PBS in the 80's a wonderful complex description of how intelligence operations work, political interference, budget worries, a conscious rejection of the " James bond" hi-tech image. If you are look for big explosions and supermodels then this is not for you, what violence that is seen is short range knives and bullets in dark alleys. Well done and intelligent,Marsden and the rest of the cast is excellent.0 have only watched the first couple of episodes but it holds up well although the situations could often be very different in today's internet/cell phone world. The only down side is that it has been broken into 3 or 4 $30 boxes. This whole series should be in one set but just seeing it again is great.

Brilliant series : well-written and well-performed. Sophisticated plots that didn't strain credulity and rarely ended up neatly resolved. The best spy/international intrigue series ever produced, in my book.

A previous commenter noted that the series seemed to end abruptly and wondered if our British friends were holding out on us. The reality is that the series was supposed to continue for at least another season, but there was one problem: the producer/writer of the series died at the end of the first season. This was one of those rare situations where the originator of the series also wrote all of the episodes. That intimacy with the characters and the ability to weave various plot lines over multiple episodes was one of the characteristics that made Sandbaggers so enjoyable. But it also made it vulnerable to disaster because only the producer/writer knew all the plot lines he had planned for the second season. Most of that was in his head. With few notes to go on, the production company staff found it impossible to figure out what to do with the series, so the second season was never produced. It's a tragedy because Sandbaggers was so wonderfully done. We can only guess whether Willie survived and how Burnside dealt with his ex-wife.