Been watching it on NetFlix - Season 1 and 2 great!! What happened .....

I came to this board specifically to ask the same question!

What happened that caused the elimination suddenly of FOUR major characters in episode 3.1 (numbered as listed here)? A more minor character, but still significant in the stories, was the woman Garvie was interested in: Pru. She also just disappeared without a trace.

Eliminating Pete, I could see. He already said he was trying to get killed, so losing him had been set up from the beginning. But suddenly losing not just Pete but Jamie and Ricky too in an op gone bad, and then only hearing about Caroline leaving during some exposition from Henno . . . did actors quit? Did producers decide to go in a different direction? What?

And there was no closure for Pete's wife or Jamie's sister and kid brother.

Personally, they lost me as soon as Henno took the AK to Macalwain in 2.6. I knew his character has to be cold and brutal, but murdering one of their own that way crossed the line for me.

Also, suddenly in 3.1 we're never hearing the group called "Twenty-two reg" again, just "the SAS." And instead of "Have that," a Britishism I enjoyed, we were hearing the more American "Got it."

I suspect changes were made in an attempt to accommodate an American audience, but was it ever broadcast here?

Never watched it on ITV but stumbled across it on NetFlix.

Writing out Jamie Draven's character was a huge mistake. He was the cool guy everybody wanted to be and every woman wanted to shag.

Danny Sapani's character was a great 'older brother' to 'Jamie Dow' and when Jamie was killed off he was perhaps less relevant to the story.

The 'Pete' character was going to go postal and perhaps nobody wanted to see that on screen.

Did the numbers suggest that it was former Eastenders viewers who were driving the ratings? Did Ross Kemp not like sharing the stage with the younger, hotter actor??

(Jamie Bambers character as the cute but bumbling Rupert was an interesting counter and underlined that class still matters even in the British army, not talent)

At least in 'Spooks' when they killed off Tom or Adam or any of the other great characters, another like Roz was available to drive the story forward.

I only watch season 3 and 4 to see if they were able to patch this disaster. It struggled and finally it was put out of its misery.

If I was a betting person, I would guess that ego's on the set caused this to self destruct.

Unlike in American shows, in the UK the actors usually get contracts for one season only. Which means that the producers have to get all their ducks in a row and keep the actors interested in continuing with the series so much that they will turn down other stuff. I don't know what exactly happened here, but my guess is that they were too late to secure the four actors for the third series.
Happened to "Strike Back" too. R. Armitage got a role in The Hobbit, and the Strike Back producers had to look for a new lead.
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"I only watch box sets. Soya latte anyone?" (GuardianOnline reader CameronYJ)

Chris Ryan was no longer the advisor for it so story went down hill and the characters knew this and left for other things, jumped before it crashed. Pete went into a lot of films in minor roles.