Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10
Cast: Julie Graham, Rachael Stirling, Crystal Balint, Chanelle Peloso, Jennifer Spence, Jessica Harmon, Jordana Largy, Peter Benson, Sarah Smyth, Jesse Moss, Paul McGillion, Colin Lawrence, Luke Camilleri, Arron Craven, Emma Flemington, Andrew Neil McKenzie, Brendan Riggs, Ben Cotton.
Not all deaths are murders, some are just accidents, some have the sadness and heartbreak of suicide attached to them, and some are just unexplainable, they fall into the realm where Morpheus takes a gentle hand and eases the soul in its time of despair; not all deaths are murders but the ones that can be corrupted by the foul stench of profit and the act of greed are arguably amongst the most insidious to bear.
It is a deadly web weaved, the belief that human life is second to the profit of a company, or that Government looks down upon the seemingly small and sees no issue with using them as lab rats, as bait to lure in the mighty Dollar, the chase of the pound and the pleasure of profit.
The new team that has taken shape in The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco is one that doesn’t have the sparkle, or the feel of connection that viewers had become used to as they battled war-time codes and the blackness in people’s hearts as they took advantage of the issues of the day and the hope of survival. It is this lack of connection that makes this foray into the American market almost unedifying, untouchable, almost certainly unlikeable, and whilst the premise of the story might unfold with some fortune, the fact that the television planners have thought it necessary to split the tale into two halves is perhaps its most potent thought of self-destruction.
In Charlotte’s Web and its subsequent episode Madhouse, the pace of the story is unforgivably stilted, and it makes for an investigation which unusually the women seem eager at first to see the world directly as it seems, an unusual fact of believing perhaps their own prejudices against a man who has little to care for his wife. It is a prejudice that doesn’t transfer easy, an almost belittling of the excellent work carried out in the original Bletchley Circle, especially in Julie Graham and Rachael Stirling’s characters usually well-rounded observations.
A murder to safe guard profit is a disgusting reason to commit the ultimate act of betrayal against another human being, to make assumptions about one’s character based on a moments scene is just as hard to swallow, the full story never normally comes out till it is too late; something that makes this particular web less than intriguing, less than what the viewers deserve.
Ian D. Hall