> My impression of Burnside was that his professional judgment as an
> intelligence officer was frequently excellent, but his political and
> military judgment wasn't as good, and he was taking larger and larger
> risks as time went on. While I thought that overall he had been a force
> for good up until the end, by the time he was trying to disrupt the SALT
> talks he had become more of a liability than an asset to the cause he
> purported to serve.
I see Neil's judgement and ethics as far more questionable from
the beginning of the show. The manipulative number with Wellingham and
the bracelet in the second episode is one of their most interesting
little duets, but it's really sleazy. And the third episode is appalling
on almost every level. I've got one friend who's just getting into The
Sandbaggers in the current LA screening, and was more shocked by that
than the Laura arc, which I had shown him.
> of it. Of course, the last episode seemed to have been cobbled together
> out of what material they had when the music stopped. As I've remarked
> to Pat, there were some things about "Opposite Numbers" that didn't
> quite gel, and that was probably due to the fact that Ian Mackintosh
> didn't get to do a final rewrite. Most notably, the motivations of the
Isn't it a bitch when it's one of the most important episodes,
and you know that it's been messed up! Although the issues from the show
are all in place, Neil is just over the top here.
> Room. We never saw him getting or even needing a haircut. We never
> even saw what his bedroom looked like. It wouldn't have taken but a
> minute of footage to show Burnside waking up in a cold sweat from his
> nightmares, rather than have him tell us about it later. I can only
> recall one instance when he wasn't wearing a crisp banker's suit, or at
I dunno. I was shocked at how slovenly his apartment looked. I
still think Neil would be a total neat freak. We see him asleep over his
work, and we see him eating those stupid hamburgers. It's not like
Wiseguy, where they are stumbling around in their underwear (and having
horrendous nightmares), but it didn't lack reality for me...probably
because I don't think much besides work has any reality for Neil.
> personal loyalty to Burnside, we've never seen him put in a position
> where he might actually believe that the good of the Service conflicted
> with the good of Burnside.
I thought we saw Willie there more than once, and he always stood
by Neil. I don't think his loyalty is blind, because he does question
Neil's judgement, whether or not it's the right choice to put Neil above
the rules is another question.
>
> I think that spy novelist and former SIS officer John le Carre's
> work has an ultimately more realistic feel to it than "The Sandbaggers"
> does, but it's not a point-for-point sense of realism that I watch SB
> for. SB is more visceral than the le Carre works, and it frames ethical
> questions better.
I disagree. Le Carre is subtle and complex. I can't think of
anything in his work that is quite as wrenching as the Laura arc, but I find
him incredibly powerful emotionally and his ethical questions are just
somewhat different. He plays for the folly of it far more often than SB
does, and the futility.
Gayle