Review: The Sandbaggers (Series 3)
- Article 6 of 7
- Action TV, February 2007
A review of the third series of The Sandbaggers on DVD
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The series ends on Mackintosh’s final script, Opposite Numbers, which concluded with a cliffhanger of enormous proportions that was never to be resolved, the producers deciding the show couldn’t continue without its creator. Burnside, incensed by impending arms reduction talks with his implacable, untrustworthy enemies, the Soviet Union, decides enough is enough and he’ll have to intervene to stop them. Returning to the show’s overseas home of Malta with Sandbaggers in tow, he tries to exfiltrate a defector to force the talks to break down.
Although not meeting the heights set by the previous series, the third series manages to continue the show’s depiction of the corrosive effects of espionage on the psyches of those involved. Caine and Burnside are nearly empty shells by the end of the series, Burnside’s various schemes becoming almost suicidal in their recklessness. When modern shows such as 24 depict supermen who can survive years in Chinese prisons with little ill effect, it’s refreshing to be able to see spies who are also human beings, thanks to the miracle of DVD.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Network have already used up the main special features from the US releases of the show on the previous two series’ DVDs. Obviously unwilling to fill in the gaps with the minor trivia Granada and BFS Video had also supplied – including “Sandbaggers abbreviations guides” and lists of “memorable dialogue” – Network has instead chosen to provide a story from Crown Court that featured Roy Marsden. As an example of Crown Court at its finest and most pedantically accurate, it’s wonderful, but as a special features for an 80s spy series, it lacks a little something.
PICTURE AND SOUND QUALITY
The picture has considerable noise and distortion. Sound quality is good, however.
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