I recall being in my early years of secondary school, in a history class, and learning about the troubles in Ireland/NI, specifically how they started and the history of media and politics surrounding the 'troubles' (because we don't like to call it a war!). I write that because it is something I remembered whilst watching this TV series. Not because of any direct correlation to the war itself, more so because of the narrative dictated by both the media and political involvement in the events.
If you are considering watching the series, expecting some big end reveal, then you won't be happy, but then I knew that before I started to watch and would expect you to also. Indeed it was something that made me think, do I really want to bother to watch something I know a lot about? And my answer was simply, in 20, 30 or more years time, I would like to know what others may see about the events from a historical viewpoint, and that swayed my decision to give it a watch.
The most telling point is the initial episode, when it is suspected as chemical attack, and a review of chemical attacks is 'Googled'. I think we seem to live in a bubble, even now in a covid world, whereby we believe that no one would be stupid to launch a chemical attack, as the damage could never be contained and would cause risk to all, rather be contained to some. How wrong we are!
We live in a world, whereby we only know what we are permitted to know, where we are told what is decided is good enough for us to know, and whereby we put up with constraints on our lives because we are told that is what is deemed appropriate, with rarely any explanation. That for me was a reason to watch, to explore just what was the internal workings and the aftermath of these terrible events, and whilst I feel it was produced honestly and fairly accurately, simply because of the ending credits, I feel the BBC have sat on the fence a little and left it to viewer imagination, rather than push for answers that are still not apparent to this day, something our media outlets seem to have become accustomed....Since 1968 at the very least!
If you are considering watching the series, expecting some big end reveal, then you won't be happy, but then I knew that before I started to watch and would expect you to also. Indeed it was something that made me think, do I really want to bother to watch something I know a lot about? And my answer was simply, in 20, 30 or more years time, I would like to know what others may see about the events from a historical viewpoint, and that swayed my decision to give it a watch.
The most telling point is the initial episode, when it is suspected as chemical attack, and a review of chemical attacks is 'Googled'. I think we seem to live in a bubble, even now in a covid world, whereby we believe that no one would be stupid to launch a chemical attack, as the damage could never be contained and would cause risk to all, rather be contained to some. How wrong we are!
We live in a world, whereby we only know what we are permitted to know, where we are told what is decided is good enough for us to know, and whereby we put up with constraints on our lives because we are told that is what is deemed appropriate, with rarely any explanation. That for me was a reason to watch, to explore just what was the internal workings and the aftermath of these terrible events, and whilst I feel it was produced honestly and fairly accurately, simply because of the ending credits, I feel the BBC have sat on the fence a little and left it to viewer imagination, rather than push for answers that are still not apparent to this day, something our media outlets seem to have become accustomed....Since 1968 at the very least!