>Honestly, CALLAN is better than THE SANDBAGGERS...heresy to many of you,
>I'm
>sure...but I think many people would agree. THE SANDBAGGERS is excellent,
>whereas CALLAN is a masterpiece..I really do urge all of you to track it
>down: I promise you you won't be disappointed.
Almost all of the better British spy drama is based on the same principle.
Basically moral men are forced to by extraordinary circumstances to engage
in immoral acts - and feel very guilty about it. Both the episodes of the
Sandbaggers and the novels of John LeCarre are full of lies, violence and
betrayal - and this is by the good guys.
Callan is almost a parody of the British spy genre. If Burnside
occasionaly has to do something really nasty (like sending the woman he
loves to her death) then Callan will do something worse. If we see the
ugliness of humanity in the Sandbaggers we'll something REALLY gross in
Callan.
In other words, although I enjoyed Callan a great deal (if "enjoy" is the
correct word), the whole thing was more than a bit overboard. Also, Callan
generally lacked the plot complexity of the Sandbaggers. I don't think
anything outside of some of the more complex LeCarre works had the
complexity of the episode "All In A Good Cause".
Although both Callan and the Sandbaggers have similiaritys, I enjoy both
for different reasons.
Ed Ehrlich <eehrlich@shani.net>