The Bluebell Railway is excellent to stage late 1940’s or early 1950's scenes on trains, but when selecting stock for trains supposed to be working out of St. Pancras Station it was careless to use a locomotive of the Southern Railway. St. Pancras was on the London Midland & Scottish Railway until nationalisation in 1948, when it became British Railways.
shareWhat is more, the bus that appears is an RML type which was not built until 1961 and in a livery that dates to the mid 1970's, the stations shown on the route board for the Barking line are incorrect (East Ham!!!), and a character mentions the Gospel Oak to Barking line but at this date the route ran via Kentish Town, not Gospel Oak.
shareSusan's family car is a type of Morris Oxford that was not made before 1956.
shareI noticed the bus straight away,couldnt they find an RT for christ sake.
shareGeez...I thought this was a post about the actual script/plot, not the set design...
shareHa, I also thought post was about actual script/plot holes or some such.
As a Yank who only visited London once briefly 1978 the settings & period work ok enough for me. Maybe step back a bit from home turf viewpoint. It's a bloody story after so most viewers are paying major attention to plot & acting which are quite fun.
Guess some people like to 'get down into the weeds' with these things. For me my real life consumes enough of that. Just looking for a little escapism and the show delivers. Nuf for me.
Maybe I haven't checked lately but is the Julie Graham character being written out for a change over? End of show backgrounder guy sort of said the series will have characters coming & going. Or will they sneak her back in later via hubby transferring to London or dying? Looking forward to more.
So this fact ruined it for you?
shareThis kind of thing always makes me laugh - it's so nerdy for some and so bleeding obvious to others. My opinion is that if you're going to do a period drama, then it should be period.
Never would have noticed these faults myself, but the researchers need a good kick up their @rses.
In episode 2 they showed the train going over a bridge which had a modern height sign.
shareI had thought some of the vehicles were too modern, but would not have been sure enough to comment. Some of the dialogue, though, struck me as anachronistic, particularly, a reference to murders in "Greater London". I know the phrase may have existed before it had any official meaning (1965) but I don't recall ever hearing it that far back. "The London area", "The Home Counties", maybe, but never "Greater London".
shareAside from lack of attention to detail in setting, I found one or two of the actors and actresses really didn't have that period feel to them. It was partly the costumes (for example I am pretty sure all the women would have worn hats when outdoors) but also the speech and mannerisms. One or two of them seemed to be just speaking and acting like modern men and women in fifties clothing. For example in last night's episode a woman was nearly run over on the street, and one of the Bletchley girls exclaimed 'Jesus!' while helping her up. It just didn't sound right for a girl of that background at that time. Similarly, a hospital doctor at the end of the episode sounded very modern too. Whatever happened to acting!
shareAnd Series 2 episode 1 includes the discovery of "2nd class stamps" in a wallet - not introduced until 1968??
shareYes, a stupid error in referring to a book of 2nd class stamps, no 2nd class post until 1968 and stamps were not sold in books in 1953. At least they found an RT bus for this series, but I am pretty sure that the term CEO for the head of an organisation was not in use (in the UK anyway) at that time.
shareI suppose there will always be anachronisms in a show like this (Ministry of Defence 10 years before it was created, one character off to "Mumbai"), but I still enjoyed it as a series of adventures / crime dramas.
shareDear Lord, did somebody really say 'Mumbai'? That shows very, very sloppy script writing and editing. I've worked in the theatre briefly and we had designers/editors etc who checked things in a period drama down to tiny details like light switches and styles of mens' belts - so why can't the BBC do that as well!
shareOMG ... you're right! It didn't even register at the time I heard it, but I even SAW it, because I was watching with subtitles!
Correction: I spoke too soon. In ep 2.3, when Alice asks where Susan went, the reply is "Bombay," both spoken and [cc].
How funny--the exclamation of "Jesus" also caught my attention as anachronistic! I wondered if it was an ad-lib kept in because the take was otherwise fine.
Although I'm all about period detail, we have to draw the line somewhere, and if productions become too expensive there will be fewer for us to watch.
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Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"--Pres. Merkin Muffley
I had the misfortune to watch one episode of this series. I was surprised at how bad it was. The episode concerned was Blood on their hands: A mother who looks younger than her daughter - there is actually 8 years age difference (the actress playing the daughter being younger); discussion about the army murdering people (as if that happens every day); a lawyer who seems to live in the cell with his client; a junior civil servant with presumably the Home Office suddenly being offering a Foreign Office overseas posting - even foreign office staff have to wait years for an overseas post; a murder suspect who seems to have been tried convicted and sentenced to death within a couple of days; talk of military trials and executions held in secret. A ridiculous travesty!
shareSo, where are all the pea soup fogs London was famous for because of the insanely high particulate matter in the air from all the coal burning? Every day is a sunny day for these girls.
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