Cheap Sandbaggers Collection Set 1 (DVD) (Roy Marsden) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Sandbaggers Collection Set 1

Complex characters; superb acting; like reading a good novel
The Sandbaggers was written by Ian Mackintosh, a man who wished to debunk the James Bond mythology and portray Cold War era espionage as it really was. The series was made in the late 1970s, and three short seasons were produced - this boxed set includes the first six of the seven episodes that comprise the first season. Roy Marsden is superb as Neil Burnside - Director of Operations for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6). He is in command of a three-man section of special agents, nicknamed the Sandbaggers, who undertake politically sensitive and hazardous missions outside the UK. The world of spies is shown to be prone to budget cuts and political interference, and internal office politics affect the outcome of missions as much as (if not more than) international politics. The entire cast is exceptional, rising to the task of breathing life to excellent, witty, and complex scripts which really demand that the viewers pay attention (repeated viewings also yield new understanding and new surprises). The characters are multi-layered and grow with each episode - no one in this series is all good or all bad; they each have their strengths and their failings, and it is a joy (and sometimes heartbreaking) to accompany them on their journey. PBS airs the show occasionally, and this boxed set is a good introduction to a wonderful and unique British television experience.

---

Superb drama series...
In the very first episode, Operations Director Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) tells a neophyte in the spy game ... if you want James Bond, go to your library. That's pretty much the show's mission statement.

Instead of over-the-top, high-tech adventures, The Sandbaggers offers a real-world view of the espionage world. There are no Q-gadgets here. Instead, Burnside has to fight numerous budgetary restraints -- like justifying why his agents need to fly into the field well-rested on a good quality flight. Every action has to be planned, cleared, etc.

The heart of the series is not in adventures, but in mission planning, characters, and the moral ambiguity.

The first episode that truly grabbed me was "Special Relationship" with its very disturbing ending.

---

Battles of wits with the Whitehall wallahs
The excellence of the BBC's THE SANDBAGGERS overcomes any quaintness of plotting that pits Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service against the machinations of the Evil Empire's KGB and its minions. Considering the menace of today's shadowy terrorist groups unaligned with any particular nation state, a return to the Cold War seems almost like the Good Old Days.

The "hero" of this television miniseries that aired in 1978 and 1980 is Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden), the wily, lonely, ruthless, testy, and driven Director of Operations, who works out of MI6's London headquarters in Century House. More specifically, Burnside oversees the "Sandbaggers", a trio of special agents available for covert operations against foreign enemies in the world's hotspots.

If you're expecting to see feats of derring-do reminiscent of 007, or even the Avengers, look elsewhere. Indeed, it's when the camera occasionally follows Neil's agents on their oversees exploits that the action gets clunky and amateurish. The essence of each episode's script lies back in London as we watch Burnside match wits with his immediate boss, SIS Deputy Chief Peele (Jerome Willis), and the agency's Director General (Richard Vernon), otherwise known as "C", both of whom Neil scornfully regards as bumbling incompetents, as well as with the meddling political wallahs in the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office. Who needs enemies with friends like these? And there's Neil's awkward relationship with Sir Geoffrey Wellingham (Alan MacNaughton), the urbane Permanent Undersecretary of State and the father of Burnside's estranged wife.

Perhaps the best episode in Set 1 is number 7, "Special Relationship", in which Neil dispatches Sandbagger Laura Dickens (Diane Keen) to East Berlin to retrieve some photographic intelligence from an agent-in-place. The mission turns into a personal disaster for Burnside in which the viewer first sees a human side to the Director.

THE SANDBAGGERS series nowhere approaches the superb BBC's productions of John Le Carre's TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY and SMILEY'S PEOPLE, both starring Alec Guinness. But, THE SANBAGGERS is an intriguing and intelligent depiction of the politics and backstage maneuvering of spycraft.