PBS’s The Bletchley Circle Season 1 takes place in 1952, when four women who worked at the wartime code-breaking center, Bletchley Park, reunite to track down a serial killer.
With an extraordinary flair for code breaking and razor-sharp intelligence skills, four seemingly ordinary women become the unlikely investigators of a string of grisly murders in this original thriller, set against the backdrop of post-war London.
The four main characters are:
Susan (played by Anna Maxwell Martin who was Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra in “Becoming Jane” and Elizabeth Darcy in “Death Comes to Pemberley”) is the mathematical genius who is a whiz at patterns, statistics and puzzles. She is also a married woman with two young children.
Anna Maxwell Martin in The Bletchley Circle
Millie (portrayed by Rachael Stirling who played Ada in the Doctor Who episode “The Crimson Horror” with her mother Diana Rigg) is bohemian, streetwise and adventurous – and Susan’s best friend.
Rachael Stirling in The Bletchley Circle
Dame Diana Rigg and daughter Rachael Stirling in the Doctor Who episode “The Crimson Horror”
Lucy (played by Sophie Rundle from Call the Midwife and Episodes, where she played Matt Le Blanc’s stalker) has an idetic memory with photographic memory and recall. She is also the youngest and most naïve of the four women.
Sophie Rundle
Jean (portrayed by Julie Graham who played a villainous alien on an episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures) is organizer who has access to everyone and everything. She is described as “the moral center” of the four women.
Julie Gardner in The Bletchley Circle
The first episode opens during WWII. It’s 1943 and we meet four women (Susan, Millie, Lucy, and Jean) who are working at the top secret Bletchley Park. As Susan is working on a message, she notices a strange pattern. After discussing it with Millie, Lucy and Jean, they work out what seems to be an important aspect of a code. After taking it to their supervisors, Susan learns that they were correct. Their breakthrough changes troop movements and saves Allied lives. The process they use to solve this problem shows us just how intelligent these women are and how important the workers at Bletchley Park were.
The show then jumps to nine years later. Susan, now a married housewife with two children, is following the news of a string of murdered women. She thinks she sees a pattern but when she offers help to the police, she is rebuffed. Eventually they take some of her advice but when the police fail to find any physical evidence, they give up. Susan is sure she can help solve the murders and looks up her old friend Millie. They enlist their former co-workers Lucy and Jean. Although reluctant at first, all four realize that they can help save the lives of women. So when another girl goes missing, they get organized and start working to solve this whodunit.
The show is a combination murder mystery and social drama with strong women leads. It does a great job of portraying the gender roles of the time and how these intelligent women, who helped win the war, were displaced afterwards. It is clear that the male officials find it impossible that these women would be able to help them, let alone solve the crimes. With the exception of Steven Robertson (who plays a super creepy bad guy), the male actors are relegated to the types of roles women often get, i.e., “the husband”, “the co-worker” etc.
I’m really looking forward to getting Season 2 as it adds two actresses I really enjoy: Hattie Morahan who played Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (which I wrote about here) and Faye Marsay who was Anne Neville in The White Queen (which I wrote about here). I’ll be sure to review Season 2 as soon as I watch it.
For more info about Bletchley park, go here: Bletchley Park Research
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