This story opens during the war with four women doing vital work at Bletchley Park; the sort of work that could mean life or death for Allied forces and could even be the difference between victory and defeat
the story isn't set in the war though; it is set in 1952; the women are now living very ordinary lives and nobody, not even their husbands, can know what they did during the war. Pattern spotting expert Susan is now a bored housewife who thinks she has spotted a pattern in a murder case being reported in the papers and on the radio; she is convinced that rather than four victims there are in fact five; the police just didn't find them all. She takes this information to the police and they search the area she predicted the other victim must be but find nobody. Realising she has missed something she gets in touch with wartime friend Millie; she in turn says that if they are to solve the case they will need document expert Jean and Data specialist Lucy
thus the four are reunited. They trawl though all the information they can find and work out that the killer is using the railways to find his victim; they even manage to track down the site of the next body.
When I saw this advertised I assumed each episode would be a self contained mystery but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that this was just the start of the mystery; I know there are some decent shows that are only an hour long and still feature a complete mystery; the best however tend to be longer. This opening instalment served to introduce us to the four protagonists and get the case started. The cast all do a good job, especially Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Susan and Rachael Stirling who played Millie. The four leads work solidly together and looked like real 1950s people; not glamorous; just ordinary women. The case they are working on is good; the killer does unpleasant things but thankfully none of that unpleasantness was really dwelt on although we do see one victim in a state of extreme distress and hear a shocking detail about what the killer did. The idea of having a group of ex-code breakers to solve a mystery is intriguing; I hope it continues to be this interesting in the remaining two episodes; I shall certainly be watching to find out.
When I saw this advertised I assumed each episode would be a self contained mystery but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that this was just the start of the mystery; I know there are some decent shows that are only an hour long and still feature a complete mystery; the best however tend to be longer. This opening instalment served to introduce us to the four protagonists and get the case started. The cast all do a good job, especially Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Susan and Rachael Stirling who played Millie. The four leads work solidly together and looked like real 1950s people; not glamorous; just ordinary women. The case they are working on is good; the killer does unpleasant things but thankfully none of that unpleasantness was really dwelt on although we do see one victim in a state of extreme distress and hear a shocking detail about what the killer did. The idea of having a group of ex-code breakers to solve a mystery is intriguing; I hope it continues to be this interesting in the remaining two episodes; I shall certainly be watching to find out.
