SAS Rogue Heroes: Season One – Review
One of the series that I was interested in watching was SAS Rogue Heroes, the show based upon the book Rogue Heroes. I was a bit nervous because television series based on historical events can vary widely in value and reliability.
I am glad that I gave this series a try.
The series is about the SAS, that is the Special Air Service. This emerged out of the growing commando activity against the Nazis. There seemed little hope that the SAS would have a major impact, or even survive their first couple of missions.
This series is a BBC production. When I think of the BBC and content based on the Second World War, I have a specific image in mind. This is not what I found with Rogue Heroes.
This series has much more of a Hollywood vibe than that of the BBC. It is slick and flashy and it is all about colourful characters who almost live in a different world from that of their contemporaries.
I should mention that there is a lot of profanity and a small amount of nudity in this series.
To give you a hint at how different this series is, the soundtrack is primarily that of classic rock, with a heavy dose of AC/DC. While I’m a classic rock fan, it took me off guard having AC/DC as the music for British soldiers driving through the desert in 1942. Once I got over that disconnect, the soundtrack began to fit and strengthen the atmosphere that was being created.
The purpose of Rogue Heroes is to entertain and it does that. But it is also remarkably historically accurate. There is at least one major character that is fictional but the rest are historical. Some liberties were taken. If there is some question of sexuality in the written records, it becomes a certainty in the series.
The first season focuses on their activity in the desert during the North African campaign. The SAS gets tasked to make hit and run operations on German and Italian air bases and destroy their planes while still on the ground. And after their first disastrous mission, they get quite good at it.
One of the things I appreciated was the development of the characters. At the beginning, the major characters seem like caricatures of who you might expect in a commando show. But with each episode, details are filled in and they become more and more three dimensional.
There is also some real wrestling with death and violence. At first they seem to glory in war and killing. But with the loss of friends and even the killing of unarmed enemy, there is some deep soul searching.
In terms of what happens to the characters, the show is guided by the historical events. Some are killed and some are captured and some are promoted. They go with what actually happened.
It took me a couple of episodes to get into it but I really enjoyed SAS Rogue Heroes and I look forward to the second season.
I want to mention that there has been some controversy over the portrayal of some of the characters, especially Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne. You can read about some of the issues here.
