Damn... what a huge letdown. I have just read a book on Kim Philby. Watched several docs about the Cambridge Five. Watched movies and TV shows pertaining to the story. It's interesting spy stuff. So a TV show about it would be fun no matter how you make it if you just present the basic facts. Just show us basic spy work, show agents trying to trick each other, show Philby and the other guys travel the world. Show Philby getting a job at MI6 and CIA. Show him getting hundreds of people killed.
I watched the first episode. It's a mess. I don't even know what the hell is happening. They whisper about certain events and you kinda try to figure out what is even going on on screen. You can't. Events just happen and then later some of it is explained. Multiple of these traitors were gay communists. The TV show could have explained how homosexuals are largely left-wing or something and then left it alone. Instead 40% of the first episode is just about gay romance melodrama about who sleeps with who and who dates who. Why do they think people interested in historical spies would in any way be interesting in progressive gay melodrama from BBC? A flamboyant gay character is constantly acting extremely gay everywhere. It looks absolutely fake. I'm not sure if they meant for this to be comedy or what. The overacting is ridiculous. Instead of realistic scenes the actors shout and scream no matter if they are around people or not. There are multiple scenes where you see naked men from behind or see their upper bodies. Zero scenes where the same happens to women. We see a woman's back once in the first episode. So clearly it's not meant to just be realistic and show sex scenes overall. It's meant for a certain very liberal audience - and audience unrelated to fans of this real story.
Because the episode also tries to present it from their point of view it takes the standpoint of anti-fascist communists who work for Stalin's regime. So fascists are presented as the bad guys. There are multiple scenes where fascists are openly hating Jews. In Vienna in 1934 the Nazis have taken over the country so Jews cannot travel anywhere and are caught and shot on the spot. That's 1 year after Hitler took power in Germany and we are supposed to believe Jews were already getting hunted and killed in Austria? Even in 1938 Germany this would be too soon for such scenes. After that I could believe it, but even then they would catch Jews and send them to camps not just shoot them randomly on the street. It would be a giant disaster for city morale and regional support. At any rate Austria was independent in 1934. Even in Vichy France during WW2 they caught Jews and sent them to Germany. They didn't hunt them down and shot them.
The sound is bad. As I mentioned before they sorta whisper their lines or shout them. This was clearly not filmed on modern digital cameras so I assume they just got unlucky with old mics or storage of the recordings. At any rate the video and and audio quality is below par. It's a BBC show that looks ugly which is a damn shame as they have some great set locations here that don't even exist anymore. The plot of course often ends up being a mess in historical movies as you can't walk from set to set. But here it's extreme. They just appear on a set then appear in another set.
I'm pretty offended at this. Of course the story is quite huge and important and interesting by itself. But this is not focused on that story enough. And furthermore they are made into heroic characters. You kinda have no choice as it's too hard to make a proper TV show about evil people in the leading roles if you are not an expert at this. So we get a weird show where the bad guys are made into full on anti-heroes. Imagine a show about Nazis where they gassed Jews, but otherwise were shown as heroic. Don't forget these guys had hundreds of people killed by giving their names to KGB. The show should have been from their point of view and then from a patriotic agent's point of view too that way you wouldn't be forced to make people like Kim Philby into anti-heroes smuggling Jews in 1934 Vienna. You could just tell the real story without inventing plotlines making them into heroes.
I watched the first episode. It's a mess. I don't even know what the hell is happening. They whisper about certain events and you kinda try to figure out what is even going on on screen. You can't. Events just happen and then later some of it is explained. Multiple of these traitors were gay communists. The TV show could have explained how homosexuals are largely left-wing or something and then left it alone. Instead 40% of the first episode is just about gay romance melodrama about who sleeps with who and who dates who. Why do they think people interested in historical spies would in any way be interesting in progressive gay melodrama from BBC? A flamboyant gay character is constantly acting extremely gay everywhere. It looks absolutely fake. I'm not sure if they meant for this to be comedy or what. The overacting is ridiculous. Instead of realistic scenes the actors shout and scream no matter if they are around people or not. There are multiple scenes where you see naked men from behind or see their upper bodies. Zero scenes where the same happens to women. We see a woman's back once in the first episode. So clearly it's not meant to just be realistic and show sex scenes overall. It's meant for a certain very liberal audience - and audience unrelated to fans of this real story.
Because the episode also tries to present it from their point of view it takes the standpoint of anti-fascist communists who work for Stalin's regime. So fascists are presented as the bad guys. There are multiple scenes where fascists are openly hating Jews. In Vienna in 1934 the Nazis have taken over the country so Jews cannot travel anywhere and are caught and shot on the spot. That's 1 year after Hitler took power in Germany and we are supposed to believe Jews were already getting hunted and killed in Austria? Even in 1938 Germany this would be too soon for such scenes. After that I could believe it, but even then they would catch Jews and send them to camps not just shoot them randomly on the street. It would be a giant disaster for city morale and regional support. At any rate Austria was independent in 1934. Even in Vichy France during WW2 they caught Jews and sent them to Germany. They didn't hunt them down and shot them.
The sound is bad. As I mentioned before they sorta whisper their lines or shout them. This was clearly not filmed on modern digital cameras so I assume they just got unlucky with old mics or storage of the recordings. At any rate the video and and audio quality is below par. It's a BBC show that looks ugly which is a damn shame as they have some great set locations here that don't even exist anymore. The plot of course often ends up being a mess in historical movies as you can't walk from set to set. But here it's extreme. They just appear on a set then appear in another set.
I'm pretty offended at this. Of course the story is quite huge and important and interesting by itself. But this is not focused on that story enough. And furthermore they are made into heroic characters. You kinda have no choice as it's too hard to make a proper TV show about evil people in the leading roles if you are not an expert at this. So we get a weird show where the bad guys are made into full on anti-heroes. Imagine a show about Nazis where they gassed Jews, but otherwise were shown as heroic. Don't forget these guys had hundreds of people killed by giving their names to KGB. The show should have been from their point of view and then from a patriotic agent's point of view too that way you wouldn't be forced to make people like Kim Philby into anti-heroes smuggling Jews in 1934 Vienna. You could just tell the real story without inventing plotlines making them into heroes.