Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 7/10

Cast: Julie Graham, Rachael Stirling, Crystal Balint, Chanelle Peloso, Jennifer Spence, Peter Benson, Colin Lawrence, Agape Mngomezulu, Ben Cotton, Teach Grant, Nicholas Lea, Lydia King, Neil Grayston, Sarah-Jane Redmond.

The war may have ended but for many the fight went on, especially those women from every walk of life who fought to be recognised, rightly, as equals to their male colleagues who were doing the same job as them. The code breakers, the factory girls, the women working the land, the teachers and the everyday; a war was not just won in the fields, seas and air over Britain, Europe and the whole world, it was engaged and wrestled with in the homes, in the minds and experiences of those who stood up to the evil of Fascism and who wanted at all cost, for the country to survive.

For quite a while though, once the victory in Europe and the Pacific was won, women were not so much asked, but almost expected to return to the places they held before, this sense of unfairness was perhaps one of the biggest acts of betrayal towards social equality in the last hundred years; an echo of the days after World War One, but his time with more anger installed into the hearts of those who had also done their duty.

It is always good to remind ourselves of how far we have come, not to mention on far there is still left to go, but as a sequel of sorts in the first two part story of The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, it was almost with a sense of arrogance and disdain for the invaluable contribution, the sacrifice, that women made that comes up for discussion as two of The Bletchley Circle’s characters, Julia Graham’s Jean McBrian and Rachael Stirling’s Millie Harcourt travel to the West Coast American city in search of a serial killer who took one of their own when the United States Army came to Britain.

Whilst the first story in this new series took its time getting off the mark, the potential murderer almost telegraphed from the start, what the two-part tale showed was that it was not just in Britain that incredible, clever and versatile women were let down, almost squeezed back into lives that they didn’t want or even deserve, this was a world-wide issue and one that still needs addressing today. The lack of belief and faith shown by the police in the abilities of the four women who took on the clues and patterns left by the killer maybe nothing new but it brings home a truth of the Post-War dream, that for some the vision they held up to get them through the war, instead must have seemed like a fantasy, an illusion swept under the carpet by those they had worked alongside.

There is always hope and whilst the first two episodes, Presidio/Wake, didn’t quite live up to this new serial’s predecessor, it shows absolute promise for the future.

Ian D. Hall