Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *
Cast: Julie Graham, Rachael Stirling, Crystal Balint, Chanelle Peloso, Ben Cotton, Jennifer Spence, Chelah Horsdal, Noel Johansen, Adrian Hough, Peter Benson, Kurt Max Runte, Michael Adamthwaite, Graeme Duffy, Candus Churchill, Raphael Kepinski.
The belief in playing to your strengths is one that is fraught with the acknowledgement that you might never improve in other areas, the whole notion of only ever drawing upon one set of ideals or inspiration is an anathema to writing, it stunts creativity and can lead to the permanent pigeon holing of your possible future endeavour. Yet for all that some conceding must take place when it considers the future of what could be a demanding series, in which the plot begs for a choice to made, one of social commentary or the mystery at hand.
It is in this dilemma to which The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco must grapple with if the series gets revived for another series. In the final two-part story, Fog Of War/In For A Pound, that sense of divided self is perhaps more apparent for the audience. It is one caught between wanting to enlarge the point of what the Bletchley Circle women accomplished heroically during World War Two and without treading into a place of story-telling inaccuracy. Those who see the series as yet another piece of the murder mystery to which British television does well but which is always seemingly given a shorter lease of life when it comes to appealing to American audiences who like their thrillers to have an ending driven by a neat ending; not so much the restoration of justice, but the bonhomie of friendly drink in a bar and everybody nestling in satisfaction and humour.
The mystery should not be considered a sacred beast in which the story is delicate, almost apologetic, and by depicting the four women at the heart of the story, including the otherwise impressive Rachael Stirling and Julie Graham, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco is one that promises to get to the heart of looking at how women were unjustly side-lined after their huge contribution to the war effort, their ideas and ethics relegated as men reassumed their perceived lofty heights and instead is one that muddles along, lost in its own fog, almost grasping the point but instead continually, and regrettably letting it slip away.
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco has the ability to really showcase the positive, it is within its means to be an extraordinary programme, but instead it seems content to be on a par with series such as Murder, She Wrote and later versions of Ms. Marple. It is understandable that you play the cards you are dealt with, that the times in which the action is depicted dictates the story, but there is no need to offer a washed down version of history in the pursuit of appealing to all; a situation to which the series needs to rectify if it is to continue.
Ian D. Hall