What fresh hell is SAS rogue heroes

[breathcalmly]

Was looking forward to a decent new Sunday night BBC drama but this is shite. Annoying loud music played at random times, posh twatty toffs and other stereotypes, nothing much happening over first 2 episodes, token fit woman who doesn't do much other than prance around looking stylist. It's just really macho and boring and the characters are all in likeable. Boo.

To be fair, I thought that from the trailer and gave it a miss.

I’m enjoying it a lot. Like the music and characters. And it’s funny too. Like Alfie Allen character. It’s a fun romp so far

the music gives me a headache, DH was half heartedly watching it and was glad when it finished.

I’m enjoying it! Part of the fun is that it all seems so far fetched, but much of it is factual.

There was a documentary about the early SAS on the Beeb a few years ago, I highly recommend watching that too: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08f00s0

The podcast on BBC Sounds - Obsessed With SAS Rogue Heroes - is worth listening to. There’s one for each episode.

We liked it!

we’re really enjoying it, though I suspect the token beautiful woman is one of the main “not true“ parts of the story.

Ooh we loved it. Some of the soldiers are super hot.

Just to reiterate, I highly recommend the accompanying podcast. They've got a military historian who clarifies which parts actually happened and which have been exaggerated/added in. We watched Ep 3 on iPlayer last night and it was fascinating to hear the historian (Lucy Betteridge-Dyson) talk about what happened as it's pretty shocking!

I'm finding it fascinating, and will listen to the podcast. Thanks.

I thought the trailer looked good. We started it. I soon lost interest. My husband loved it. I thought it was very much in the style of lock, stock and two smoking barrels etc, which I also found pretty tedious...

I do like the fact that it's based on a true story, and the music was good, but just something about it wasn't for me.

@ethelredonagoodday you/your DH might enjoy the original documentary (which has interviews with some of the men in later life) which aired about 5 years ago: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08f00r9

Thanks for that, I'll mention it to him! ☺️

Apparently, it's total fiction and the soldiers didn't behave anything like this. Enjoy it as a work of fiction if blowing things up all the time, is your thing, but don't take it as reality

It's not "total fiction". There are of course embellishments and downright inaccurate stuff in areas, but there is a lot of truth. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who has not seen it yet, but Ep 3 contains some pretty disturbing (and historically accurate) stuff.

You can Google SAS WWII raids to see what they did, and also look up many of the individual soldiers themselves - Paddy Mayne was notorious (see my previous reference to Ep3) and Reg Seekings (the man Paddy has the boxing match with in Ep 2) is regarded as a god by modern day SAS recruits.

Of course much of the whole fascination about the SAS is in their mystery and uncertainty about what is fact and what is fiction. It was certainly good propaganda during WWII to have stories of this group of ruthless soldiers heading towards the enemy, for the morale of both sides.

Lots of stuff that happened in WWII was completely batshit bonkers. To the extent that when making films about bits of it, much of the real story needed to be cut to make the films believable. Look up people like Jack 'mad dog' Churchill.

Yes this is a dramatisation and not completely accurate but a lot of unbelievable stuff actually happened.

Absolutely, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

Apparently, it's total fiction and the soldiers didn't behave anything like this. Enjoy it as a work of fiction if blowing things up all the time, is your thing, but don't take it as reality

Of course it's not fiction! It's a dramatisation of real events. Amazing events and incredible people.

But of course as a dramatisation things are embellished/made up for dramatic effect.

Two things about this. I think tv series (or film) filled with music the director likes because that' waht they grew up with, and fashion shoot style badlly behaved men (because basically you are an immature schoolboy) is any way to tell a story!

Also all the reality is that Stirling was his own self publicist and those actually responsible for the formation of the SAS and many of what they did achieve in was was because of others, namely his brother and Mayne.

He also was not that respected by those he was supposed to command because of his disregard for other people's lives.

But over the years the myth has become accepted as truth.

This book reviewed in the Daily Express is closer to the truth. www.express.co.uk/news/history/1622015/david-sterling-special-air-service-phantom-major-phoney

I watched and quite enjoyed it after I got used to the pounding Rick music soundtrack. I realize there is dramatic license but it is based on the amazing history of the SAS . Apparently the scene with the grenade did really happen but it was a live grenade not a fake as in the programme - OMG . A lot of these early SAS men were renegades but war is a dirty business and heroes come in different guises .

@ConstancetheGardener you’re right they were a different breed, for better or worse, but they were what was needed during a brutal conflict.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-reg-seekings-1091190.html?amp

warfarehistorynetwork.com/commando-paddy-mayne-irelands-wolf-of-the-desert/

Mike Sadler is still alive, the lady surviving original member, aged 102. He’s in a care home near Cambridge but still totally with it and on the ball www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/girton-veteran-story-bbc-programme-25426771.amp

We enjoyed I, although I thought it was getting a bit same-y towards the end. It's made by the same people who made Peaky Blinders, hence the loud non-contemporaneous music style etc.