The Bletchley Circle

Four women, Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin) Jean (Julie Graham), Millie (Rachel Stirling), and Lucy (Sophie Rundle), who previously worked at Bletchley, nine years later, pool their unique talents and resources to solve enigmas and save lives.

This is a period piece, mid 50s London, so they have the clothing and hairstyles of the time. They have to maintain the dialog of the time.

This sis a formula detective series with all the standard who-dun-it's and clues. What makes this series unique is that instead of the inspector and his sidekick, we have the for women civilians using their unique code-breaking skills picked up from working in Bletchley Park during the war, to do the same thing.

Even knowing it is only two seasons it is worth the purchase.

A revival attempt is made with The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (2018).

During WWII, many women were vital to break the German codes at Bletchley Park. It's seven years after the war. Susan finds herself as a simple housewife and mother of two. Her days of life-and-death work is over. She starts noticing suspicious patterns with murders in the newspapers. Her husband humors her by going to the police but it's hard to be taken seriously. She recruits her fellow Bletchley workers. Millie is the outgoing one. Lucy is the youngest one with an abusive husband. Jean was their supervisor and now works as a librarian.

This is a fine British crime TV mysteries. The superior aspect is the cast and the characters. Bletchley Park is a great backstory. Susan a great character and her issues are compelling. The show could have overdosed with sexism but it is able to find a certain balance. Most of the men are dismissive but they aren't actually hostile. Timothy is a good example. He really loves Susan but he doesn't really know her history or the true extend of her skills. It's a great touch that he is constantly searching for hard puzzles for her. It's both loving but infantilizing. My constant issue is that the ladies are sometimes a little too cavalier with potential dangers. Susan's fears in the second season are well founded. I'm not sure why she gets written out for the last two episodes. All in all, I love the characters and the mysteries are fine.

This was a sparkling, well thought out, murder mystery. It dealt with the part of World War II that we seldom get to see on the screen. These four women had developed their minds to nearly super-human levels, only to let them rust in the decades following the war. This drama is set in that curious after-time. It's a time when hands that had once killed and maimed had to be placed in a domestic setting. Both the protagonists and villain were all products of that curious time. They captured the sense of mid- 50's London exquisitely. The piece was well cast, well filmed and well acted. I hope that we get to see more of the amazing women of Beltchley!

Can't wait for second series, stayed up to was all 3episodes last night! A lot of complexity between the 2nd class status of women in that period and their ability to rise above with their ability and intelligence. And yet still women were not considered able or intelligent!

Loved the capture of the clothes and fashion from that period it is like stepping back in time! Sure glad I don't have to though, those men would make want to bop them on the head!

The characters are a lovely blend of the range of developing females during that time where they are confident and assured and yet still intimidated and daunted by the role men had them pigeon holed in.

The British really do period drama well. Often they choose strangely identifiable characters, which are played by highly competent actors. This show was much better than I expected. I really wondered how they were going to tie in code-breakers to a post-war world, and assumed it would be something to do with Russia. What a pleasant surprise to find these extraordinary women on the hunt for a serial killer. The science behind their quest was also extraordinary, and believe me, never suffers from the antiquated or mundane in terms of mind boggling genius in terms of their analytics. It's all very original indeed. The background is authentic 1950s and worth a look just for that. The social commentary was brilliant, though some may find it a little too extracurricular to the suspense of the main plot. The villain is good and evil, and I would have liked to have seen more of that, which is where my extra point disappeared. It would have given the story an extra kick to the suspense, which it needed, because a lot of the suspense was how husbands and other chaps would react to such aggressive role-breaking. It's a tiny criticism. This is truly a wonderful show. If you love excellent period piece BBC crime drama, then you are in for a treat when you discover The Bletchley Circle.