I was initially wary about watching “The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco.” This was despite how charmed I was by its predecessor, “The Bletchley Circle,” a two-season mystery series set in post-World War II London.
Bletchley is, of course – at least to those of us who are intelligence buffs – the WWII British codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park. It was largely staffed by women, sworn to secrecy regarding their critical wartime duties, and afterward returned to the strictly-defined gender roles of English life – therein lies the rub at the core of the series.
The original series reunited four such women in the early 1950s to apply their formidable skills at detecting patterns and hidden messages in London crimes. It was a delightful Lady Power celebration with keen plotting and four distinctive leads who would meld into a crime-solving superbrain, very much in the fine English mystery style yet at the same time clever and fun.
Could the concept travel Stateside and keep it charms and edge? I wondered. Then once I finally started watching the Frisco Bletchley, it wooed me until I was solidly sold on the new iteration, wowed by how it broadened and enhanced the original concept.
Only two of the original four return the show: Jean McBrian, played by Julie Graham, and Millie Harcourt, played by Rachael Stirling. One aspect of the appeal of the series to me is my attraction to women with English accents. I’ve traced the origins of that attraction to how when I reached puberty years ago, the first woman in the media I found attractive was Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in “The Avengers” in her tight catsuits. It was only with the Frisco Bletchley series that I learned that Stirling is Rigg’s daughter.
The two are joined by an African-American woman the English codebreakers had been in touch with at the US codebreaking center in the Bay Area. She recruits another from her wartime teammates to round out a new four.
McBrian and Harcourt travel to San Francisco in 1956 to see if they can find a man who killed a Bletchley codebreaker in 1942 when they learn that a murderer in California has left the same sign found on the dead English woman. The city proves itself a redolent setting in which further societal themes swirl through the story, and the series portrays the locale with scenic and cultural richness. A jazz nightclub plays a central role in the plot, capturing the sounds of the era and the city’s prominence as an American bohemian refuge. Its incidental plot threads include how homosexuality was just beginning to step out from the shadows in the city that became a gay mecca in the decade that followed. Racial issues also swirl through the milieu as developers try to relocate Black residents out of the Fillmore neighborhood. These aspects bring more to the inherent sociopolitical commentary of the “Bletchley Girls” concept.
And as before, there’s a number of cracking good mysteries to be solved beyond the serial murders, one of them this time involving Soviet spies. Plus the general spirit of good fun that pervades the show and leavens the serious plot points that helped make the original “Bletchley Girls” seasons so charming continues.
Drawing on our current sociocultural themes, one can enjoy how the show in a true-to-historical way spotlights the first awakenings of what is now called being woke to such issues as feminism, race relations and sexual orientation, all the while being fine entertainment. Hence the news that “The Bletchley Girls” will return for another San Francisco season has me jazzed with anticipation.
Books: “Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service” by Carol Leonnig – The Pulitzer Prize-winning <i>Washington Post<i> reporter who wrote this tome is also co-author of the recently newsworthy “A Very Stable Genius.” She traces the Service from its worst fail of the JFK assassination up to now to paint a rather distressing if also quite engaging portrait of an organization mired in dysfunction, nowhere near as on point and up to date as it should be to protect the president (and others) in these troubled times.
Music Album: “Hardware” by Billy F Gibbons – The ZZ Top frontman and guitar slinger delivers a tour de force slab of 21st Century blues rocking laced with simmering six-string brilliance, cool songs and mojo galore.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2021
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us
PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652