>
> Could be, although I must admit I can't think of another case where an
> actor left a series due to health problems, but stayed around to shoot
> episodes explaining that his character was leaving due to health
> problems!
>
> I half wonder whether the replacements for the original "C" and
> Burnside's secretary were planned to set up the final few episodes.
> It's hard to imagine Peel talking the first "C" into relieving Burnside
> as DOps and sending him to Madrid station, and the relationship between
> Sandbagger #1 and the second secretary makes the final episode all that
> more poignant/tragic.
True enough. So it might have been a planned cast member change.
> I noticed that the last few episodes also seemed to be highly
> politicized: they dealt with specific causes (human rights in the
> USSR, the SALT talks) rather than generic espionage activities, as
> if someone involved with the show had an agenda to push.. Maybe
> they were just background for plots, but the episodes seemed to be
> quite a contrast to the rest of the series.
The one that really stands out as being a change of pace was the human
rights one. That one was written by someone else. I believe that one
other episode was written by someone other than MacKintosh but i'm not
sure. Before the final season was filmed MacKintosh died in a plane crash
while scouting the arctic for a different series. So they filled in 2
episodes with different writers. The producers were in fact considering
doing another season but apparently weren't satisifed with the writing of
the replacement writers so chose not to.
> When Sandbaggers was originally broadcast, was it done all at once,
> or did they produce several episodes a year for a few years?
There were three seasons in all, with a break inbetween each season. The
time difference in filming between the first and second seasons was about
a year (the first season ended with Laura's death). Which is partly why
they had stuck a year into the storyline between the two seasons. I don't
recall how long of a time there was between the 2nd and 3rd season.
### ./\. ### JASON POTAPOFF. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
### _|\| |/|_ ### Email: jpotapof@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
### \ / ###
### >______< ### "Where there is much light, the shadow is deep."
### / ### - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe