The Bletchley Circle: Season One 2012

     Millie, Jean, Lucy and Susan worked together during WWII at Bletchley Park in London.  Their job was to break the codes used by the German military.  After the war, they signed an agreement that they would never reveal where they worked or the type of work.  The time period now is nine years later in 1952-53.  Susan is married to Timothy and she has a young son and daughter.  Susan is good at finding patterns and she is following the newspaper and radio reports about a serial killer brutally murdering women in the London area.  Timothy arranges for her to talk to the Police Chief but he sends men out to search and they don’t find anything.  The Chief is quick to dismiss Susan's information because she is just a woman and housewife.  Susan realizes she needs to contact Millie, Jean and Lucy to help her.  She needs their special skills to help her solve these crimes and save more women from being killed.

     This is very tense and the timetable is short because the killer can strike again and again if they don’t stay one step ahead of him.  Over time, they don’t realize they are putting themselves and their families in danger.  Susan’s husband doesn’t have any idea that Susan and her friends worked at Bletchley Park and he doesn’t understand the extent of their skills.  Susan is good at recognizing patterns, Lucy has a photographic memory, Jean is an organizer and Millie is good with maps.  Susan is also very good at anagrams, crosswords and other puzzles but she thinks they should be more difficult to solve!  This is SO GOOD!!  It’s very interesting, different, surprising, suspenseful, with good acting and characters.  4* (I really liked this series)

45 min per episode, 3 episodes, TV Series, Crime with Rachael Stirling, Julie Graham, Sophie Rundle, Anna Maxwell Martin, Mark Dexter, Ed Birch, Michael Gould, Elliot Kerley, Jocelyn Macnab, Steven Robertson.

Note:  Imdb 8.0 out of 10, 85% critic 95% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic 73 out of 100 critic user 8.5 out of 10, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 697 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Bletchley Park, Bletchley, Buckinghamshire and London, England, UK.  There are two seasons of this series and it’s very historically and visually accurate.  The settings, clothing, hair, makeup and everything else about this time period is carefully followed.  There was a department in the US during WWII like Bletchley but after the war the workers could say their occupation but not add any details.  After Bletchley, the women could only say they were clerical workers.