We return from our Christmas break for more of our second season of an A to Z of UK TV Drama...

We begin 2023 by looking back at the Granada mini-series Harry's Game. First broadcast in 1982, this hard-hitting drama is best remembered now for it famous end credits theme by Clannad, however, it has much more to recommend it. 

Set during the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the series follows British agent Harry Brown (Ray Lonnen) attempts to uncover and arrest an IRA gunman Billy Downs (Derek Thompson), while his nervy handler Davidson (Benjamin Whitrow) tries to keep him alive from back in England. 

Written by former journalist Gerald Seymour and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, Harry's Game covers a bleak period of recent history and is a stark reminder of the fragile peace reached through the Good Friday agreement, currently under threat due to the self-serving machinations of Brexiteer politicians. 

Andy & Martin find much to enjoy here but fail to resist the temptation to break into some 'Norn Irish', for which they can only apologise.

2.8 Harry's Game

The year is 2003 and Earth's intrepid humans have managed to set-up several bases on the moon. There they face the implacable enemy that is the silence and darkness of space - a serious and apparently underestimated threat to the mental wellbeing of moonbase personnel...

Created by Doctor Who’s Barry Letts and Terrance DIcks this 6-part series from 1973 starred Donald Houston, Ralph Bates and Fiona Gaunt and had scripts from John Brason, John Lucarotti and Arden Winch. Moonbase 3 lacks Doctor Who's monsters and excitement and instead delights in technical details and psychological concerns. As such it is something of a hard SF curio which is widely regarded to be a misfire, even by Letts and Dicks themselves.

The big question is what will Andy & Martin make of it from the vantage point of 2023, some 20 years after its characters, with their very 70's attitudes, were meant to be surviving on the moon?

N.B. Having completed the first half of our second A to Z series, we are taking a mid-season break but will return in a few months with a drama beginning with the letter N...

2.13 Moonbase 3

Archive television podcast in which Andy Priestner and Martin Holmes explore a new UK drama every episode, offering informal critique, insights and trivia. Join them every fortnight for televisual-based larks.

2.13 Moonbase 3

An A to Z of UK TV drama

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